Harry Potter, the Child Who Lived
by Chiwizard
Summary: Slight AU...Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, isn't the BOY who lived, but the GIRL Who Lived instead...will she be able to make it in the Wizarding World? Not a genderbender, set in SSPS The thing with the chapters has been fixed!
1. In the beginning

**_(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)_**

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Okay, here we go, yet another fic by me, Chiwizard!

Well, this is a big deal for **me**, anyway. This is my first serious Harry Potter fic, you know. Or at least you would know, if you went and looked at my other fics. And just to warn you all ahead of time, yes the thing with the names is on purpose, and not because I did a sloppy job and didn't bother to fix it. I like reviews, and I figure I'll get more of them if you people have trouble understanding what's going on. **MUWAHAHAHAHA!**

_Ahem._

Now for the fic. Enjoy!

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (HBP would have been SO different if I did, honestly)

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The day blossomed splendidly that morning, everything bright and cheery for many people in Britain. For some, the sunrise went unnoticed, whether they were sleeping off the previous day's celebrations or if they were instead too caught up in ongoing parties to take notice of the outdoors.

For Mrs. Petunia Evans-Dursley, the day seemed suspiciously ordinary. Vernon had come home completely frazzled the previous afternoon, and no amount of fussing over her delightful Duddikins was allowing Petunia to forget that her perfectly normal husband had been the one to bring up the topic of _Them_.

Of course, Lily had sent word that she was expecting a baby, along with a list of possible names - '_To put on your list of people banned from your house, sister dearest, as we mustn't let that get out of date._' The **nerve** of her! As if Petunia had even cared that she was about to be related to either Harold James Potter if it was a boy or Harriet/Harlequin something-or-other-slash-James Potter if it was a girl! No matter what the gender, it was obviously going to be another freak like its parents and if Petunia had been anywhere nearby when it had come into the world she would have made certain it had been drowned at birth.

As Petunia opened the door to put out the empty milk bottles, she made a tiny personal vow that no such sinful little brat would contaminate her precious Dudley or any other child if she could help it.

But as it turned out - Petunia took a moment to glance down, spotted the swaddled baby on the front step, and let loose with a piercing screech that could be heard a block away - to 'help it' was something Petunia very clearly was not going to accomplish.

Hours later, she and Vernon were still collaborating on what to do. Dudley was amusing himself by flailing at his new cousin with hard little fists while the freak sniveled uselessly.

"We can't keep that little rat!" Vernon declared for the seventh time, flipping around the letters that had come with the baby.

One had been marked for the baby to read when it was old enough, but neither of them cared about **that**.

"Babies go to orphanages all the time…we'll choose one where they'll be able to keep _that_ sort of nonsense under _control_," Vernon added.

"Their kind doesn't understand common sense, Vernon," Petunia was regrettably forced to mention, "Even if we did, they'd be back here in hours, demanding we keep that foul little thing with us…as if it was even human! No, Vernon, we'd best raise the sniveling brat ourselves."

"_Petunia!_" Vernon gasped, "What about Dudley? I won't stand for my son -"

"Nor will I!" Petunia interrupted, "I know exactly what you mean. But if we keep the baby, we can raise it to be a normal, proper, hardworking member of society! We'll have **beaten** them, Vernon!"

Vernon considered this, before breaking into a smile and sighing, "Petunia, darling, this is why I fell in love with you in the first place."

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And so that was how things went. For the first five years, Petunia spent her time between giving her precious Dudley everything he ever needed and more, and spent the rest of her time doing all she could to destroy any unnatural fiber in her sister's child's body. As was to be expected, the brat was insubordinate and lazy, sometimes necessitating Vernon's heavier hand, but eventually Petunia felt almost satisfied.

Signs of unnaturalness were few and far between, and the neighborhood praised the Dursley family for taking in Mrs. Dursley's worthless sister's daughter and doing all she could to turn the little thief and murderess into a _good_ little girl.

…


	2. And now

**_(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)_**

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Here, another chapter. Go and read it why don't you.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

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Harlequin Carlotta-James Potter, nicknamed 'Harry' by her obnoxious cousin (because he was a fat-arsed doofus), blinked her way out of a vaguely pleasant dream as Aunt Petunia rapped on her door and screeched, "Up! Get _up_, you filthy little urchin!"

"I'm up, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, scrabbling to her feet and reaching for her clothes.

"Get into the kitchen this instant," Petunia continued, "Today is Dudley's special day and I won't have you ruining it!"

'This instant' really meant 'if you're not already there now then you're late', so Harry didn't exactly fling on her things and bolt out. She dressed quickly, though, making time to gently relocate the spiders who had gotten lost in the depths of her shoes. Harry had a little soft spot for bugs and such, especially spiders. Not only could she relate to being despised for existing the same way they were, but she shared her 'room' with spiders - otherwise known as the cupboard under the stairs.

Harry would have finally done well enough to gain a **real** room on the second floor a few years ago - according to her aunt and uncle - but the room in question was Dudley's second room, where a lot of his useless junk went, and he threw a huge tantrum because he didn't want to give it up. Harry's hope that her relatives would for _once in their lives_ actually punish him for being so spoiled had been dashed in the 'Hair Incident', after which Harry was told she had to stay in her cupboard because it was her fault.

It had most certainly NOT been her fault; Petunia had gotten so fed up with Harry's hair that she'd hacked it down to bristles. Harry had black hair, unlike her relatives, and if it was allowed to grow it ended up being long and silky and rather nice, but it also had a tendency to try and go every direction, making it look - as Petunia said - utterly disgraceful. Petunia had nearly shaved Harry bald except for her bangs, to cover the (supposedly) hideous lightning-bolt scar Harry had gotten in the car crash that had taken her mother and father's life. That night, Harry had spent the hours awake, imagining all the horrors going outside with almost no hair would bring - as if she didn't have a hard enough time already!

She'd gotten maybe only an hour's worth of sleep during that, but in the morning Harry's hair had somehow changed. It looked exactly the same as it had been before Petunia had shorn it off, and as usual her relatives punished Harry for being the victim of such an unusual circumstance…since there was no way she could have grown it back overnight all by herself.

Last were her glasses. Gotten from a thrift store, as were many of Harry's things, they were ugly things. Thick black frames in oval shapes, they hadn't even been prescription, they'd been in a box of cast-off stage props. One bit of unnaturalness Harry had not bothered her aunt and uncle with was how the glasses had overnight changed into a pair that fit and actually helped her to see better. They'd expanded on their own over the years, and still worked fine - even if they had to be taped up from _Dunderhead-Dudley_ sitting on them.

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Dressed, Harry clambered out of her cupboard and into the front hall. From there, she headed into the kitchen, where Petunia glared at her for taking almost all of five minutes to do something as simple as getting dressed and pointed her to the stove to cook breakfast.

Uncle Vernon had been reading the paper, but now he looked up, scowled at her, and barked "Do something about that filthy horse-hair!" in greeting.

The kitchen table itself was groaning under the weight of the many wrapped presents, most of which were huge. As usual, they'd done their best to give Dudley a pile of stuff bigger than he was - these days, that was actually hard. Harry had not given Dudley anything, she had never liked him much and her relatives would have freaked out if she had ever dared anyway.

Floor-shaking thuds heralded the boy in question's approach. He peered into the kitchen, spotted his pile of loot, and gave a piggish squeal of delight as he thudded over to begin the arduous process of counting.

Harry finished cooking the eggs and bacon, grabbed the toast, and brought it all to the table. Feeling Petunia's eyes on her, Harry resisted the temptation of giving herself a second bacon strip and sat down to eat without spilling anything on _precious_ little Duddikins' _precious_ presents.

_Duddikins_, for his part, had apparently given up on counting when it went past the number of fingers and toes he owned and instead said "How many are there?"

"Thirty-five," Vernon said proudly, "Ah! No, I'm wrong, there's thirty-six."

Dudley scrunched his face up like he was about to cry.

"**THIRTY-SIX!**" wailed Dudley, "**BU-BUT LAST YEAR…BUT LAST YEAR THE-THERE WERE THIRTY-SEV-SEVEN!**"

Harry shoveled food into her mouth as fast as she could, hearing the warning signs for a massive Dudley tantrum and wanting to be prepared in case he turned the table over. Seeing the same warning signs, Petunia quickly added "And on the way home today we'll pick up two more presents for your special eleventh birthday day, Duddikins! **Two** more presents, now won't that be lovely, darling?"

Dudley hesitated, adding the numbers up in his head. Not surprisingly, this took a while, and before the fat boy finished the doorbell rang.

…


	3. A very Harry Birthday

**_(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)_**

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Check it out, its an update!

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**Whoooooooo!**

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

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…

For Dudley's birthday, he and his best friend Piers were going to the zoo with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Harry, of course, was not invited to come along as she never was.

At least, she wasn't until Petunia got off the phone at the last minute and informed her husband: "That was Mrs. Figg, she's broken her leg. She can't take the girl."

Mrs. Figg was a elderly lady who lived a few streets away from Privet Drive. When the Dursleys wanted to go somewhere without Harry tagging along to ruin things - which was every time - they left Harry with her. Mrs. Figg owned over a dozen cats and spent every 'visit' Harry made detailing the life history of all the cats she had ever owned, which seemed like hundreds.

As boring as that was, she was the only babysitter the Dursleys could get for Harry, since Harry had a terrible reputation with all their other neighbors. The Dursleys were viewed as something like saints for taking Harry in, but Harry was just about completely demonized as a nasty, wicked girl who wore patchy and ratty black clothes and was so skinny and bony only because she wanted extra attention. Really, Dudley Dursley was so fat and owned so many flashy outfits of his own, so how else did Harry look in comparison, living in the exact same household? The idea that those two conditions weren't Harry's fault had never crossed anyone's mind, not even old Mrs. Figg's.

Harry hoped she could stay home - she'd be able to watch the television and have a snack for once - but instead she found herself wedged in the back of Vernon's car, next to Dudley and Piers, with a harsh warning about what would happen to her if anything 'funny' happened while she was there. She resolved to make the best of things, as going to the zoo was something else Harry had never done.

It was a good day, for a while, a really good day. Harry got a lemon pop (cheap and only because the ice cream lady had spotted her before the Dursleys had gotten away from the ice cream stand) AND Dudley's ice cream sundae at lunch (it didn't have enough hot fudge and sprinkles on top for him, so her cousin had gotten another one instead).

Piers had lost interest in the animals quick enough but Harry's cousin proved himself good for something for once and actually kept Piers from bothering her. It was Dudley's only use, really. At school Dudley and his gang bullied all the other children, but no one was allowed to bully Harry unless Dudley said so because she was both a girl and his cousin.

The unspoken rules of manly warfare dictated that Dudley could not hit Harry because she was a girl, and the unspoken rules of the playground dictated that no one could be Harry's friend if Dudley didn't let them because she was his cousin and therefore his 'property'. If Dudley hadn't turned out so completely spoiled and let her have even one friend, Harry could have honestly tolerated him, but then again Dudley _was_ the proud inventor of 'Harry-Hunting'.

That was the game where Dudley's gang chased Harry, sometimes as far as across the neighborhood and back. And when they caught Harry, she would get shoved and kicked and whacked with sticks and rulers…oh what a **lovely** children's game, no harm done there!

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These thoughts in mind, their group reached the Reptile House and went inside to look at snakes. Dudley immediately found the biggest snake in the place, a Boa Constrictor, and banged on the glass to get it to move. The Boa ignored him completely, and finally the Dursleys moved on to see the other reptiles.

Harry chose to stay by the Boa's cage. More people wandered by, ignored the 'Please do not disturb the animals' sign to hit the glass, and then moved on when nothing immediately happened. The snake turned to stare at the silent human after another few moments.

Harry gave the snake a little smile and said "I think I know how you feel, people bothering you all the time just because you're strange to them."

The snake raised its head, eyeing Harry in a suspiciously alarmed manner, before nodding in agreement. Harry stared at the Boa as it opened its mouth and she heard it's hissing voice reply "_Mossst humansss, loud and ssstupid. Not you, you are nice._"

Trying not to freak out, Harry asked, "You are nice too, do you talk to many people?"

The Boa shook its head.

Before Harry could continue this amazing conversation, Dudley's piggish voice erupted from behind her. 

"MUM! Dad! Look, look at this snake, look at what its doing!"

And as her cousin knocked her to the floor in his eagerness to press his fat face against the glass, Harry looked up from the ground and felt something weird happen in the back of her head…something similar to a bubble popping. And when the 'bubble' popped, so did the glass - right out of existence.

Dudley, unable to stop himself, plunged head-first into the deep pool that filled the front part of the Boa Constrictor's enclosure. As he surfaced, spluttering, Dudley found himself face-to-face with the inquisitive snake, who had never gotten to see a human this close up before, and screamed like a banshee for his mother.

The watching crowd of people backed away in a hurry when the Boa, not thrilled to be up close and personal with Dudley's wailing, decided to make use of this exit to leave its cage. Slithering out easily, it landed on the ground next to Harry, looked her in the eye, and said "Thanksss. Time for sssome fun…"

'Fun' was chasing screaming people out of the Reptile House, playfully snapping at their heels. Back inside the Reptile House, Dudley noticed the snake was gone and tried to climb out of the cage - only to discover that the glass had reappeared as mysteriously as it had vanished. He started screaming again, and Petunia added her shrieks to the mess the second she saw what had happened to her precious baby.

So ended the best day Harry had experienced in her whole life so far. Uncle Vernon locked her into her cupboard for two weeks for being at the scene of the crime, Dudley developed a severe fear of snakes from the incident, and Petunia boxed Harry's ears repeatedly on the way home and whenever she saw her for the next month…even so, it had still been a pretty good day.

…


	4. First Letter

**_(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)_**

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I'm bored and this thing seems to be writing itself. Besides, we're getting to the good stuff now!

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Here you go, my loyal readers! (All...four of you, anyway)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

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Months after the 'Snake Incident', but before Harry's own eleventh birthday, Harry came into the kitchen for breakfast to discover Petunia was stewing something on the stove, something that smelled really foul.

Peering inside the pot, Harry was surprised to discover her aunt was cooking two dresses and a pair of socks.

"That's your school uniform," Petunia informed Harry snidely, "You'll be going to Stonewall Public High School this fall."

"Why is it wet?" Harry ventured to ask - the first rule of the Dursley household for Harry was to ask no questions, but this was weird enough to deserve one.

"I'm dying some old things, it will look just the same as the other children's afterwards," Petunia snapped, before turning to her son and crooning, "Oh, and doesn't my little Duddikins look _stunning_ in his Smeltings uniform?"

Dudley was going to Smeltings Academy for Boys, Vernon's old school, and was currently modeling off a disgusting mix of screaming red, screaming orange, a silly straw hat, and a stick that the students were supposed to hit each other with during classes. It really explained something about Uncle Vernon, actually.

"Dudley, dear, will please you go and fetch the mail?" Petunia asked when the mailman came by.

"Make Harry get it," Dudley grunted around his pile of breakfast.

"Get the mail, you," Petunia snapped at Harry.

Dodging whacks of Dudley's Smeltings stick, Harry went for the mail. A small pile today, some bills, a postcard - and a weird one on the bottom. The envelop was made of weird paper and the back was sealed with a wax seal. Written on the front, in green ink no less, was:

**H. Potter**

**The Cupboard Under the Stairs**

**Number 4 Privet Drive**

**Little Whinging **

**Surrey**

It was a weird letter…and it was addressed to HER. 

"Checking for letter bombs, are you?" Vernon called derisively from the kitchen.

Quickly, Harry figured her options. This was the first letter she'd ever gotten, and it was strange. Her aunt and uncle would be furious to find out she had received it…but their fury would be even greater if she tried to hide it from them. Not that she would get a chance - she had taken so long that Petunia stormed into the hall and dragged her back into the kitchen, yanking the mail out of her niece's hands and tossing it onto the table before going back to her clothes stewing/dyeing. 

"Marge's been ill," Vernon announced, reading the postcard, "Seems she ate a funny whelk -"

"Harry's got a letter!" Dudley yelled, just as Harry was trying to slip her letter out from underneath the others to go read it in her cupboard.

Immediately, Vernon snatched it from her fingers.

"Let me see it Dad!" Dudley badgered. 

"Give that back!" Harry cried, "Its mine!"

"Who'd be writing to _you?_" Vernon sneered, before flipping the letter over to see the return address.

Seeing Uncle Vernon go pale was a new experience.

"Petunia!" he gasped.

She came over and gasped too.

"Get out of the kitchen," Petunia told the two preteens sitting at the table.

"It's **mine**," Harry said, standing her ground angrily despite the obvious consequences, "I want to read it!"

"**I** want to read it!" Dudley bellowed, adding his two pence.

"_OUT!_" Vernon suddenly roared, face purple.

Dudley and Harry were silently fighting for the best spots to peer through the closed kitchen door in minutes. Harry lost and had to press her head to the crack underneath the door.

"_Why_, Petunia!" Vernon was saying, "I thought we'd finally gotten rid of _them_ -"

"I know, Vernon," Petunia replied.

"Should we reply? Tell them we don't…"

"…Better destroy it…just wait this out…get discouraged…"

A minute later, Petunia opened the door. Immediately Harry faced her aunt and said, "May I have my letter now, Aunt Petunia?"

"I still want to see it," Dudley complained.

"That letter was addressed to you by mistake," Petunia informed Harry, "We have burnt it. Go back to the cupboard and stay there."

Sure enough, there was a little pile of ashes on a plate sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. Vernon was putting away a packet of matches.

"It was not a mistake," Harry muttered as she walked back to her cupboard, "It had my cupboard on it."

Harry spent the rest of the day sitting quietly on the cot in her cupboard. Oh, if she had only moved faster! She could have tossed it in here on the way back to the kitchen and be safely reading her very first letter right now! Or if Dudley hadn't given the game away: her cousin had taken his parents' example and blamed her for the 'Snake Incident' and his new phobia, and this was just the latest example of his attempts to get back at her.

Much to her surprise, Uncle Vernon visited her cupboard that evening. He didn't fit inside, but when he stooped he managed to wedge himself into her doorway.

"Your Aunt and I have been discussing matters," Vernon said, "And since you are a growing girl and this cupboard is small, we have decided to move you upstairs, to the second bedroom."

It only took one trip to get Harry's things upstairs, and she looked around her new room with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was a _room_, but on the other hand, it would be harder to be first to the mail slot if she was up here. Probably Vernon and Petunia's intention…that meant they knew or believed that whoever wanted to send her a letter would send more when she didn't reply to it.

Oh, maybe they'd even come themselves to see what was taking so long! This in mind, Harry decided to make the best of this room change.

Dudley took this room change not well at all. He threw his biggest tantrum yet - turning over the table, all the chairs, the sofa, and breaking several windows as he screamed, threw himself down the stairs, pretended to cry, _really_ cried, was sick on purpose, and went on an all-out smashing spree with his Smeltings stick. Much to Dudley's bafflement, none of this worked and Harry kept her new room, which had been half-filled with broken toys and dusty old books.

…


	5. You've got Owls!

**_(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)_**

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WAHH! School's started - as has my part-time job - and that means less updates than usual for everyone!

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NEVER! Here, in honor (sort of) of the new school year, and because I didn't get to post any earlier this week, I give you the **_Triple Update!_**

Enjoy!

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Disclaimer: See last chapter

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…

As Harry suspected, Vernon and Petunia got her up first, walked her to a seat in the kitchen, and stayed there, watching her, so that she couldn't leave. Vernon seemed especially nervous this morning, and when the mail finally came, he even sent Dudley to go get it, almost like he was trying to be nice to her.

That stopped the second Dudley yelled, "Here's another one! **H. Potter, the Smallest Bedroom -**" 

Vernon and Harry charged for the hall. Harry was faster but Vernon was bigger and stronger. There was a three-way scuffle between the three of them - including Dudley - during which everyone got hit with Dudley's stupid Smeltings stick but Vernon got the letter and destroyed it again.

The next morning, Harry tried to sneak down early. She wanted to wait for the mailman at the corner of the street, and get Number 4's letters first. Stopping her first was Dudley, who had gotten a similar idea into his head, and Vernon, who had slept at the bottom of the stairs in order to prevent any and all such attempts. Vernon had yelled at Harry before sending her back up to her new room, and at breakfast Harry saw four letters being shredded to bits in Petunia's food processor. Uncle Vernon nailed the mail slot shut that afternoon.

The next day, Harry got a dozen letters, all rolled up and hidden inside each of the dozen eggs the confused milkman handed Petunia through the window. Harry was allowed to touch none of them, even though Dudley snidely promised to let her read some of one of them, after he did, if she helped him snatch one, because Petunia and Vernon burned them all right away.

Dudley turned to Harry as the remaining sane person in the house besides him that day, since Petunia had actually snapped at him when he tried to grab a letter and Vernon spent the day trying to complain to the milk or egg people and whistling nervously under his breath.

The day after that was Sunday. Vernon sat in the family room and laughed, not sounding at all sensible.

"No post on Sundays," Vernon grinned, "No ruddy letters today -!"

A letter smacking him in the face cut him off mid-sentence. As everyone in the room turned to the source of the letter, the chimney, more letters shot out. Ten, twenty…the air was soon filled with flying letters. And still, Harry did not get her letter: Petunia had picked up on how Dudley was going to share with her somehow and had (somehow) literally thrown them both out of the family room as soon as the letters had started flying.

Right after that, Harry and Dudley were told to pack for a trip. Vernon had declared that they were going to go someplace far away. Dudley tried to take a computer and his television and was smacked upside the head by his father for it, and Vernon drove for hours, doubling back five times until they were all completely lost, then stopping at a cheap hotel for the night.

The next morning at breakfast, a man from the front desk was walking to their table with another of the letters in his hands. Vernon spotted Harry looking, though, and before the man reached the table he sprang up and intercepted him.

"Oh, you're Mister H. Potter?" the front desk man had said.

"Yes, certainly, is that for me?" Vernon lied.

"Yep," the man replied, "Only, we got a hundred more of 'em in at the desk this mornin'…"

Vernon had the letters tossed into the hotel's incinerator, before shoving his family and Harry back into the car and taking off to drive up and down highways again, this time gradually heading towards the coast.

The reached little town with some docks that evening, and Vernon locked the three of them in the car when he went to talk to people. He came back with a long thin package, a shopping bag, and a scary man in a raincoat.

"Got us supplies!" Vernon declared, waving the bag, "And a place to stay! This gentleman's letting us borrow his boat for the night!"

Vernon's Place to Stay was a decrepit hovel on a rock, just a little ways out to sea, and his Supplies were four bags of potato chips. A really wild storm started up outside as he tried to light a fire with the empty chip bags. When that didn't work, Harry's uncle laughed, "Guess we could use some of those ruddy letters now, eh?"

There were only two rooms in the hovel, one of which was a bedroom. Petunia and Vernon got the bedroom, while Dudley claimed the ancient sofa by the fireplace. Amazingly, Dudley actually offered one end to Harry, but it wasn't a big enough couch for two sleeping people to share without touching each other, so she just sat on the floor, wrapped her allotted blanket around herself, and waited.

This time she wasn't waiting for letters, she was waiting for her birthday. It was tomorrow. The closest thing Harry got to a real celebration was her midnight countdown to the day she was born, and luckily Dudley was wearing his glow-in-the-dark digital watch. It said it was 11:59:35. Harry counted down the last twenty-five seconds in her head.

Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…was that the sound of thunder crashing outside?…Twelve, eleven…water lapping at the rocks?…Eight, seven, six…maybe she'd wake Dudley back up, just to bug him a little…two, one.

**BOOM.**

…


	6. Hey up there

**_(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)_**

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The **_Triple Update_** continues!

Disclaimer: see last chapter

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…

**BOOM.**

Harry nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound. Dudley blinked himself awake, mumbling sleepy gibberish.

**BOOM.**

Someone was knocking on the door. Each knock made the door shake wildly. Dudley was awake now, and after staring at the door stared and pointed mutely at Harry - either blaming her for this new weirdness or telling her to go and answer the door.

**BOOM.**

Harry shook her head, her answer in either case. With this third knock, Vernon emerged from the other room, Petunia right behind him, and brandishing a rifle. So that was the long thin package.

**BOOM.**

"Don't come in, I'm warning you, I'm armed!" Vernon yelled, pointing the rifle at the door.

**BANG!**

Dudley and Harry scrambled to their feet, but this last noise was not from Vernon's gun. It was the sound of the door being flung wide open. A dramatic flash of lightning illuminated their nocturnal visitor…their very HUGE nocturnal visitor who made Vernon seem puny in comparison, and wielded a large pink umbrella…their super-tall umbrella-swinging nocturnal visitor who stepped inside, looked around…

"Sorry 'bout that," the giant-sized man said, reaching over to grab the door - it had popped off its hinges after being thrown forcefully open - and setting it back in the doorway, muffling the sound of the storm outside.

"I must demand that you leave! You are breaking and entering!" Vernon demanded, turning purple and waving the gun at the giant-sized man.

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," the giant-sized man sighed, reaching over and tying the gun barrel in a big knot with his bare hands, "Now then, where's Miss Potter gone off to?"

"Um, that's me…I'm over here," Harry admitted, waving her hand a little to get the giant-sized man's attention.

"That yeh are," the giant-sized man said, looking her over fondly, "I ain't seen yeh since yeh were just a wee lil' baby, and now…yeh've quite a bit o' yer father's features, and yer mother's eyes exactly. Such a lovely young lady yeh turned out teh be!"

Harry blushed - compliments directed towards her were extremely rare - and in the meanwhile the giant-sized man moved over towards the sofa.

"'Fore I forget, Happy Birthday," the giant-sized man said, reaching into a pocket, "I might'a sat on it at one point, but it'll taste fine either way."

It was a box, and inside the box was a sticky chocolate cake with pink frosting. In green letters it said 'Happy Birthday Harley', which only bothered Harry a little bit to see, as that was the more sensible nickname derived from her proper name.

"Budge up, you," the giant-sized man next told Dudley.

Obediently Dudley scuttled around the other side of the couch, planning to cower in the corner with his parents. The giant-sized man reached into a bunch of pockets and pulled out sausages and things to cook sausages with. This was after lighting the fire with his umbrella…somehow…and asking Harry if she minded terribly if he made a little dinner for them.

"Don't touch anything he offers you," Vernon warned his son, who fidgeted at the smell of roasting meat.

"Yer great puddin' of a son don't need anymore fattenin' up, Dursley," the giant-sized man said, handing the first cooked sausages to Harry, "Yeh, though, look ta stand fer a great deal more. And I wouldna say no tah a bite of yer cake, neither."

Harry took the sausages eagerly - hey, she knew perfectly well that she looked skeletal - but hesitated.

"Um, who are you?" Harry asked the giant-sized man, who chuckled.

"Name's Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper 'O Grounds an' Keys and Hogwarts. Yeh can call me Hagrid, most everyone does…'course, yeh'll know all 'bout Hogwarts…"

"…No. Um, sorry, no," Harry admitted.

"_Blimey!_" Hagrid exclaimed, "Didn'ya ever wonder where yer parents learned it all, then?"

Sensing this was going to be a bad question, Harry asked, "…Learned what?"

Hagrid gaped at this. Before he could answer, Vernon regained some courage and spoke up.

"We will have no more of this nonsense! We swore that when we took her in we'd stamp out that - that -!"

"Go boil yer head, Dursley," Hagrid interrupted, "Thing is, Harley, yer a witch."

Harry managed not to move, although she did know she'd gone pale. The word 'witch' had been one of her first to learn, but **that** was because Petunia had gone very much out of her way to instruct her niece about the evils of witchcraft, and how witches were soulless, evil people who sold their souls to the devil and that being burned alive at the stake was too good for them.

"I'm a _witch?_"

Harry was embarrassed to hear her voice squeak a little bit, and spotted Petunia smirking triumphantly from the corner. Which reminded Harry of something else, the fact that 'witch' went with another word, 'magic', and that 'magic' was something Petunia refused to acknowledge at all, except as the Ultimate Unnaturalness. That alone made Harry like the idea, and witches did do **loads** of magic in Petunia's horror stories, didn't they?

"And I get to do magic?" 

This time, Harry looked and sounded as delighted as she felt with the idea, and Petunia's triumph turned to horror and rage. Hagrid laughed.

"'O course! And a right good an' magical witch yeh'll turn out teh be, soon's we get yeh trained up a bit. Just like yer mum an' dad."

"Was my dad a witch too?"

This question made Hagrid laugh louder than ever. After he calmed himself down, Hagrid said that no, he was a wizard, there was a difference between girls and boys and witches and wizards, and that he was honestly surprised she hadn't noticed the difference yet. 

"I saw that letter we left with 'er," Hagrid added, turning to the cowering Dursleys with a dark expression, "Am I teh understand that yeh haven't taught this here lady a single thing?"

"You _knew?_" Harry exclaimed, turning towards her aunt and uncle as well.

"How could we not?" Petunia sniffed, "With _her_ as your mother…our parents were so proud to have a witch in the family. Only I knew her for what she really was - a FREAK! Going to that school and coming back every summer with frogspawn in her pockets, turning teacups into rats…then she married that Potter boy from school and had you, and I knew you would turn out just as strange, just as - as **unnatural**…and then she and him went and got themselves blown up and we got stuck with you."

Harry stiffened in her seat. Most of that she could ignore - such abuse was a daily occurrence - but that last bit…

"Blown up? You told me they both died in a car crash!"

"A car crash kill Lily and James Potter!" Hagrid bellowed, "It's an outrage! It's a scandal! They die as heroes an' yeh say car crash, unbelievable muggles…"

"Look, you," Vernon exclaimed - his wife's diatribe giving him more courage, "All right, I'll admit there was some very funny business going on with those two…nothing a good beating or two wouldn't have gotten rid of, and that end they got was just what they deserved -"

Hagrid rose to his feet. Vernon hesitated, swallowed nervously, then resolutely finished by saying, "Now see here, she's going to go to Stonewall and she'll be grateful for it!"

"Hah!" Hagrid laughed, "Yeh're daft, Dursley. Harley Potter's had 'er name down for Hogwarts since the day she was born! She'll be learning magic underneath the finest Headmaster Hogwarts 'as ever had, Albus Dumbledore -"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HER MAGIC TRICKS!" Vernon bellowed.

"NEVER - INSULT - ALBUS - DUMBLEDORE - IN - FRONT - OF - ME!" Hagrid bellowed right back.

Hagrid held out his umbrella, aimed it at Dudley, and fired a sparkling thing - a spell - that left the boy yelling as a curly pig's tail sprouted from his backside. Vernon yelled, Petunia screeched, Dudley started crying, and the Dursleys stampeded into the other room, closing and barring the door behind them.

"Meant ter turn him inta a pig," Hagrid apologized to Harry, "Never was very good at Transfiguration…or else he's too much like a pig already. Sit down, Harley, have some more sausages."

"It's Harry, actually," Harry said.

"Pardon?"

"Most people call me Harry," Harry explained, "No one calls me Harley. Err…if you wouldn't mind…"

"'Course I wouldn't!" Hagrid grinned, "Fact 'o the matter is, yeh almost _were_ a Harry anyway, was what yer parents wanted teh name yeh if yeh'd been a boy…that reminds me, gotta send Dumbledore an owl, said I would when I found yeh…"

And from another pocket Hagrid produced paper, ink, a quill, and a slightly traumatized-looking live owl. Harry watched in fascination as Hagrid scribbled a note, tied it to the owl's leg, and tossed the owl outside into the storm.

"Plenty more time fer all this later," Hagrid said, "Only one more thing. Here's yer letter."

Hagrid handed Harry another letter. This one was addressed to:

**H. Potter  
The Floor  
The Abandoned Hovel-on-the-Rock****  
The Sea**

Inside, Harry unfolded a piece of paper - parchment? - and eagerly read it.

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL** of **WITCHCRAFT** and **WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster**: Albus Dumbledore _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)_

Dear Miss Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall,  
Deputy Headmistress

…


	7. We're off to see the wizard

More of the **_Triple Update_** for you all!

Disclaimer: see last chapter

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On the boat ride back to shore the next morning - or was it really just later on that same morning? - Harry bombarded Hagrid with questions. What was a muggle? Did all wizards and witches send mail and newspapers to each other using owls? What was the Ministry of Magic - the thing Hagrid had read about in his owl-delivered paper just an hour ago? But most importantly, why did he say her parents were heroes?

Harry only expected they were heroes because they died to save some people from some accident or something, nothing too big. Nothing too enormous.

Silly expectations.

"Err…honest, its really odd teh see that yeh don't know this already, Harry…" Hagrid reluctantly explained, "Yeh see, 'bout twenty years ago, there was this powerful wizard. An' he…went bad. As bad an' as dark as it was possible teh go. Worse - worse than worse, and his name was…"

Harry blinked as Hagrid couldn't make himself finish his sentence.

"Thing is," Hagrid admitted, "People are still scared, even now, an' no one likes to say 'is name…"

"Can you write it down?" Harry offered - she figured he must have more paper in one of those pockets of his somewhere…

"Nope - can't spell it," Hagrid said flatly, "Alright…his name…his name was - _Voldemort_."

Hagrid shuddered, then added, "Everyone knows his name, so we all call 'im You-Know-Who, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…anyway, he started looking' fer followers and fer power, an' he got plenty 'o both…dark times, Harry…but some people stood up teh him - an' he killed 'em. One 'o the only safe places left was Hogwarts, as everyone knew Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of…great man, Dumbledore…"

Hagrid paused for a moment before continuing.

"Now, yer mum and dad were quite a good witch and wizard - Head Boy an' Girl in their day! - an' didn't hold with You-Know-Who's ideas. Fought against 'im, too, which is why he went after 'em, back when yeh were just a little baby. You-Know-Who killed yer dad and he killed yer mum, Harry…but he couldn't kill you."

Harry blinked.

"Why couldn't he? Kill me, I mean."

"No one knows," Hagrid admitted, "He'd killed 'undreds of good an' skilled wizards an' witches, but something 'bout you stopped him - finished him off, even! See, when he couldn't curse yeh, he vanished, an' no one's seen anything of 'im since. Folk kinda came outta trances, came back teh our side…couldn't do that if he were still around."

"Did he die?" Harry asked.

"Some say he did," Hagrid replied, "Codswallop, in my opinion. Wasn't enough human left in 'im teh die. No, he's still out there, as I figure it, without any of 'is powers…too weak teh carry on."

And with that, Hagrid clapped his hands together with a loud, meaty slap, and changed the subject.

"Alright now, Harry, lets get you inta London and get yeh yer school things! Yeh've a list there, don't yeh?"

Harry rechecked her Hogwarts letter envelope. Yes, there was a second sheet of parchment folded in there, with her needed supplies written on it. Idly, she checked it out as they neared the coast, but the further down that list Harry read, the more she could feel her eyes bugging out. Magic was magic, but some of this stuff…

Robes and brooms and spell books and a cauldron and - and _Dragonhide_ gloves?

"Can you really get all this in London?" Harry asked as the boat gently slowed to a stop by the docks.

"Of course! That is, if yeh know where teh go," Hagrid said with a conspiratorial wink.

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To get to London, Harry and Hagrid had to walk through the little port town to get to the train station. In front of the 'muggles' Hagrid wouldn't speak of anything like magic. His admiration of ordinary parking meters did get some odd looks, and when they bought tickets he had Harry handle the money, which reminded Harry of something else she was worried about.

"Hagrid, you heard my uncle," Harry pointed out during the train ride, "He won't pay for any of this stuff, how will I be able to afford it?"

"Harry, Harry!" Hagrid told her with a fond smile - he kept smiling like that a whole lot, "No matter what those muggles've told yeh, yer parents didn' leave yeh alone in the world with nothin' at all! All their savings are sitting in their vault at Gringotts, waiting fer yeh teh use."

"What's Gringotts?" Harry asked.

"It's the wizarding bank," Hagrid explained, "Run by goblins, so yeh'd be mad ter try and rob it…never mess with goblins, Harry."

"I'll keep that in mind," Harry said to herself.

"Yep, there's no safer place teh keep anythin' in the whole world than Gringotts - 'cept Hogwarts. Vaults go deep under the ground, guarded by spells and dragons…well, people say that they use dragons…crikey, I'd love teh have one."

"…You'd…love to have…a dragon?"

Harry thought she'd only misheard Hagrid, but he only replied "Ever since I was a kid…" with a dreamy expression on his face. Before she could do anything but worry - dragons were supposed to be very dangerous, even in muggle magic stories - their stop arrived and Hagrid led the way into the heart of London.

If the train had been merely awkward, the Underground was much more unpleasant. The other people - the muggles - kept staring, and Hagrid got stuck in the ticket barrier, and once they got off and came back to the street level, Harry thought they'd gotten lost. There were plenty of regular shops and theatres and restaurants all around, but nothing that looked at all magical.

"Sorry 'bout that, Harry, don't usually go this way," Hagrid said, leading the way around the corner to another block, "Ah, an' here we are finally! See that, Harry? Leaky Cauldron, right famous pub."

The right famous Leaky Cauldron looked very dingy from Harry's viewpoint. If not for the way every passing muggle seemed to look past the place without registering its existence, Harry would have half-suspected she was being led through some sort of very elaborate prank. Inside the Leaky Cauldron, it was dingier still, but the pub was full of cheery people dressed in robes and Harry began to like it. Petunia would throw a fit if she were ever brought to a place like this.

"Hagrid!" the bartender greeted them, not seeing Harry right away and reaching for an empty glass, "The usual, then?"

"Not today Tom," Hagrid replied, swelling with importance, "I'm on Hogwarts business."

Hagrid patted her shoulder as he spoke, pushing Harry forward a few steps, and as she straightened her glasses the bartender gasped, "That _can't_ be Ms. Harley Potter?"

The noisy pub abruptly became silent, and Harry flushed in embarrassment as she saw that everyone around her was leaning closer, trying to get a good look at her. That silence was broken in seconds, though, as everyone rushed forward at once to greet her and shake her hands until they fell off - Tom the bartender managing to be somehow the first in line, despite having to get across the entire pub.

"What an honor," Tom said, "Welcome back, Ms. Potter, welcome back."

"Can't believe I'm meeting you at last -" came the rest of the crowd.

"Always wanted to shake your hand -"

"So proud, just so proud…"

"Can't tell you just how delighted I am, Ms. Potter," said a short wizard, hastily catching his top hat when it fell off, "Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle -"

Harry blinked - she actually recognized this one. It had been a while ago, and she'd been locked in her cupboard for two days because of the Incident, but still…

"I've seen you before!" she exclaimed, "You bowed to me in a shop once."

"She **remembers** me!" Dedalus Diggle squeaked excitedly, his top hat falling off again.

One of the last to come forward was a younger man, very pale and nervous. One of his eyes was twitching, very disconcertingly.

"Ah!" Hagrid said, "This is Professor Quirrell, Harry. He'll be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"What do you teach, Professor?" Harry asked politely as they shook hands - not for long though, Quirrell was so nervous that his palms were sweaty.

"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dart Arts," Professor Quirrell stuttered, adding with a hasty laugh, "N-not that _you_ n-need it, eh, Ms. P-P-Potter?"

"All right, all right! Enough already," Hagrid declared, pushing Harry past the crowd (most of whom were coming back for more handshakes) "Got lots ta buy! Must get on, 'xcuse us…"

And out the back door they went.

…


	8. Diagon Part One

Okay, after this double update, I'm not gonna be updating at all for a while. You know, while the school year gets in stride.

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PLEASE be nice and review every chapter if you're going to review at all (I strongly recommend you do review), okay? PLLLLLEEEAAASSSEE?

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Disclaimer: See last chapter

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"Told yeh yer're famous, didn't I?" Hagrid chuckled, seeing how grateful Harry was to get away from that loud, cheering crowd.

Nodding, Harry glanced around the back lot of the Leaky Cauldron. Nothing here but brick walls and empty trash bins. Harry glanced nervously at the entrance back into the pub - if Hagrid had only taken her back here for a breather, that meant they'd have to go back inside and deal with all those people again.

"This here is the way we're going," Hagrid announced, facing a wall and tapping some of the bricks with his umbrella.

Obediently, the bricks began peeling away from each other, folding themselves up and down and around and squirming into new positions to form a giant archway. Harry was only able to stop herself gawking at the archway by staring through the archway and gawking at that. And there was plenty of stuff in there to gawk at!

"Diagon Alley," Hagrid smiled.

Hagrid lead their way down the narrow, cobble-stoned street. On each side of Diagon Alley were the stores, each more interesting and strange than the previous ones…but the shining white building up ahead caught Harry's eye right away. Gringotts Bank looked huge on the outside, and inside little pointy-eared and wrinkly not-men were everywhere, doing banking sorts of things. Goblins, Harry realized, and was less than thrilled to discover she and every goblin in Gringotts were at eye level.

Harry followed Hagrid to the main desk and watched as he talked to the goblin sitting there.

"Mornin'," Hagrid greeted the goblin, "We need teh take some money out of Miss Potter's safe."

"And do you have Ms. Potter's _key?_" the goblin asked, eyeing Harry skeptically as he spoke.

"Got it here somewhere," Hagrid said, patting down his many pockets. Finally he reached into one, and pulled out a tiny golden key.

"Very well," the goblin said after examining the little thing, "Is there anything else?"

"Yes," Hagrid replied, handing the goblin a letter out of the same pocket, "Letter from Professor Dumbledore. Its about You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."

The goblin read the letter, frowned, and handed it back to Hagrid, before calling over a goblin named Griphook to take them to the vaults.

Much to Harry's surprise, the only way to get to the vaults was to take a ride in a little mining cart-type-thing. It went really fast, going left and right and sometimes up but mostly plunged downwards, going deep under the ground. Hagrid looked like he'd lost his lunch somewhere back up the tunnel when they finally stopped, so it was Harry who handed Griphook the key to the vault they had stopped in front of.

Harry hadn't really known what to expect - she'd actually told herself to **stop** expecting things or else she'd _never_ understand the magic world - but the ceiling-high piles of gold, silver, and bronze shattered what few expectations she'd still had into pieces. If the Dursleys had ever gotten their hands on this…all this time Harry had been living as little more than a penniless waif, and at the same time all this money had been sitting here, deep underground and with her name on it…

Recovering from his cart-sickness, Hagrid started putting some of the coins into a bag for her.

"See, Harry, the gold ones are called Galleons," Hagrid explained, "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine 'o these bronze Knuts to a Sickle, easy enough teh remember…this'll be enough fer a coupla terms, here yeh go."

Hagrid handed Harry the bag, and they climbed back into the cart, where Griphook was sitting and waiting for them.

"Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please," Hagrid told Griphook, "And can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," answered Griphook.

Going deeper and faster than before, the cart whizzed back and forth and over an underground ravine before reaching the vault. This vault had no keyhole, but when Griphook touched it the door simply melted away. If anyone else had tried that, Harry found out when she asked, they would have been sucked inside instead, unable to escape. The Gringotts goblins had loads of vaults with that protection, and checked them all for captured people regularly…about once every decade or so.

Harry tried not to be too disappointed when the only thing inside was a grubby little package wrapped in paper. Hagrid pocketed it immediately, and with an unhappy groan got back into the cart for the ride back to the surface.

Blinking in the sunlight, Harry stared around Diagon Alley and tried to pick which place she would go first. Hagrid, once he stopped looking so green in the face, took the initiative and nudged Harry towards a place called _Madame Malkins' Robes for All Occasions_. Once there, he pleaded a still-upset stomach and sent Harry inside on her own to buy her school robes while he stayed outside to recover in the fresh air.

"Here for Hogwarts, dearie?" Madame Malkin greeted Harry.

Harry nodded, and Madame Malkin gave her a smile and a pat on the shoulder, thinking to reassure what she supposed was a nervous student-to-be, before saying, "Come on to the back, dearie, and we'll measure you out…there's a nice young man already back there for his fitting, but it shouldn't take long at all…"

Standing on a stool in the back was the 'nice young man' Madame Malkin had spoken of. He was slicking back his already-very-slicked-back platinum blonde hair and eyeing himself in the mirror, and blinked when he spotted Harry being led to stand on the stool next to him. When he saw Harry was watching him watch her, the boy looked away, only glancing back when he thought Harry wasn't looking his way.

"Are you starting at Hogwarts this fall as well, Miss…?" the boy finally asked.

"Yes, I am," Harry replied, not wanting to give her name to a complete stranger.

Apparently trying to be gallant, the blonde bowed to her - awkwardly, since he almost fell off his stool - and took her hand and kissed it, quietly adding, "A pleasure to meet you, my name is Draco."

Blushing, Harry took her hand back as soon as she was sure it wasn't going look offensive and mumbled "Um, nice to, err, meet you too, uh, Draco."

He grinned, and Harry realized he assumed her stuttering and blushing was because she was some kind of shy, demure woman, when actually it was because this eleven-year-old was nearly propositioning her. Boys weren't even supposed to **like** girls yet, and Harry knew for certain she was too young to want to think about stuff like _that_.

Draco, meanwhile, began talking about himself.

And he talked…and he kept talking, and talking, and _talking_. The more she heard from him, the more Harry became convinced that Draco was just a (much) skinnier version of Dudley. Even though she was learning all sorts of things just by listening to him - mostly the differences between pureblooded old wizarding families and (as Draco called them) nasty and useless muggleborn witches and wizards, along a few mentions of something called Quidditch - Harry felt an almost overwhelming urge to slap Draco a few dozen times…at least until he stopped being so annoyingly full of himself.

Finally, Madame Malkin finished and Harry was allowed to leave. Draco ruined her good feeling by calling "Until we meet again at Hogwarts, my lovely lady!" to her back as she headed outside. And when Harry was back outside, Hagrid wasn't waiting for her, although he was walking back towards Madame Malkin's as fast as he could go through the crowd, carrying something, so she didn't feel completely abandoned.

"Sorry 'bout that, wanted to get yeh a little something fer yer birthday," Hagrid apologized, handing Harry what he was holding.

It was a birdcage, and inside was a white owl, who looked Harry up and down almost skeptically.

"The rules say yeh can have an' owl or a toad or a cat at school, so I figured I'd get yeh an owl," Hagrid explained, "She's a snowy owl…owls are dead useful, Harry, carry yer mail an' stuff…"

"_Thank you!_" Harry exclaimed, once it finally sank in that this was a birthday present…she'd never gotten one before. Hagrid blushed scarlet with embarrassment at such exuberant thanks and they headed off to get the rest of Harry's school supplies.

…


	9. Diagon Part Two

The double update continues! Oh, and for future reference - my girl!Harry is actually quite different from bookcanon!Harry and moviecanon!Harry, although I do borrow from both - Be observant!

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Pulling a trunk loaded down with books, robes, her new owl (Harry hadn't thought of a name for her yet) and other things behind her, Harry and Hagrid made their second-to-last stop at Diagon Alley's Apothecary. After this stop, they were going to get Harry's wand, which Harry was looking forward to. Having a wand would make her feel more magical than all this other stuff put together, even her snowy owl, Harry figured.

The Apothecary smelled funny but was full of weird things, and while Hagrid bought Harry's basic potions kit from the man at the counter, she amused herself by looking in all the jars of pickled things and trying to figure out what they had been before meeting this untimely pickle-jar end.

"All right Harry, time teh - oh, 'scuse me, Professor," Hagrid's voice called from the front, drawing Harry's attention away from the jars.

Hagrid was talking to someone in the doorway…deciding she'd rather not be gawked at, Harry kept Hagrid between herself and the person - easy enough to do - and tugged on his arm, letting him know she was there and ready to go.

"Shopping with a student?" sneered the voice of whoever Hagrid was talking to, "Do I dare wonder which student has earned this dubious honor…"

The voice stopped and Harry belatedly realized that Hagrid had taken a step to the side when she'd tugged his arm, revealing her to the tall, pale-faced man who had trailed off upon seeing her. Even on a wizard, it was easy to recognize the expression on the man's face - disgusted disbelief that the thing in front of him actually existed and dared prove said existence by being visible in his line of vision…he was even tall and skinny like how Petunia was.

"If it isn't little Harlequin Potter," the man sneered, "Extraordinary, Hagrid…you've managed to get her gender and her name completely **wrong**."

"It's just a nickname," Hagrid replied, barely ruffled, "Harry, meet yer Potions Professor…Professor Snape."

Professor Snape, unlike Professor Quirrell, did not hold out his hand to shake, and Harry gladly did not hold out her own hand either. She just stared at him, which was fine since Professor Snape was making no secret of how he was sizing her up. Something indiscernible flicked over his features, and then Professor Snape merely huffed something under his breath before continuing into the Apothecary for his own shopping…at least Harry assumed the Professor was shopping, if he taught Potions and went to an Apothecary, what else would he be doing?

"Sorry yeh had teh meet 'im all sudden like that," Hagrid said as he lead the way to the wand shop, "Professor Snape don't go out of 'is way teh make himself likable…but enough about that! Here we are, Ollivander's! Only place fer wands, and yeh gotta have the best…"

Ollivander's was filled to the brim with long and narrow boxes, and it was dusty and actually very creepy. The creepy image didn't fade when Mr. Ollivander himself materialized out of nowhere with a soft "Good afternoon."

"Err…hello," Harry replied.

"Ah. Thought I'd be seeing you soon," Ollivander said, "Harlequin Potter. Ah…"

Ollivander reached out and brushed Harry's bangs aside with a finger, briefly touching her lightning bolt scar.

"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did that," Ollivander continued, "Thirteen-and-a-half inches, yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands…well now, Ms. Potter, hold out your wand arm."

Not certain what he meant, Harry held out her left arm, since she was left-handed, and a long tape measure flew out of nowhere and began measuring Harry for all sorts of unlikely measurements as Ollivander rummaged through the stacks of boxes, pulling them down at random.

"Enough of that," Ollivander said, making the measuring tape fly away back where it had come from again, and handed Harry a wand.

"Beech-wood and dragon heartstring, nine inches. Give it a wave."

Feeling a little stupid, Harry waved the wand around, but Ollivander yanked it out from her fingers right away and handed her another one.

"Perhaps…maple and phoenix feather, seven inches. Try -"

Harry lifted the wand to wave it and found herself immediately minus a wand as Ollivander pulled it away with a shake of his head.

"No, not that one…here, quite likely, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, go and try this one."

But that one didn't work, and neither did the next dozen or so wands Ollivander had her try - most of which, weirdly enough, had unicorn hair inside them. The pile of unusable wands grew bigger and bigger, but Ollivander looked simply delighted as he ran and fetched more wands for her to take a shot at.

"Tricky customer, ah hmm," the old man chuckled, "We'll find you your match, never fret…ahhh…why not? Here you go, try this - odd combination, holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches. Go on, give it a wave!"

Harry waved the wand. It felt warm in her hand, and rainbow shower of sparks shot out of the end as she waved it around in the air.

"Excellent! Excellent!" Ollivander said, "Wonderful! …Hmm, yes, wonderful, but also curious, quite curious…"

"…Um…why is it curious?" Harry asked.

"Because the phoenix that gave the feather for your wand, Ms. Potter," Ollivander explained, "Gave another feather…yes, just one other feather. Therefore, it is indeed very curious that you should be destined for this wand…when its brother was the one to give you that scar."

Harry found herself reaching up to touch her scar.

"Yew and phoenix feather," Ollivander nodded, "Thirteen and a half inches. Ah…I believe we may expect some very great things from you, Ms. Potter…after all, He-Who-Must-Be-Named did great things. Terrible, but great."

Not half as pleased as Ollivander seemed to be about the subject, Harry handed over the money for the wand. She and Hagrid left Ollivander's, walked back to the Leaky Cauldron, took the Underground back to the train station, and headed to Surrey and the Dursleys.

Before Hagrid left her with her relatives, he handed her one more envelope from one of his many pockets.

"Can't let yeh forget yer ticket fer Hogwarts," Hagrid told her, "September First, King's Cross - it's all on there. If those Dursleys give yeh any trouble, send yer owl with a letter, she'll know how to get teh me…all right, Harry?"

"I guess," Harry said, "Thanks, Hagrid."

"Anytime, Harry," Hagrid beamed.

Harry turned and walked down the block to Number Four - the lights were on and Vernon's car was back in the driveway, meaning they must have gotten back…even though Hagrid and Harry had sort of taken the only boat and stranded them this morning…and before going to ring the doorbell and let the Dursleys know they were being plagued with her existence again, Harry checked the envelope for the ticket Hagrid had given her.

There it was…and in big letters it said the number of the platform Harry was supposed to go to. It made her eyes bug out again.

"Platform Nine…_and Three-Quarters?_"

Harry looked back, wanting to check with Hagrid if this was a really accurate number, but by then he had already vanished.

…


	10. Train Station

K, guys, now that the opening chaos of the year has died down (well, it has for ME, and that's what's important here, neh?) we will be going to a weekly single-chapter update schedule for this fic.

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Hope you guys are okay with that. Not that there's really anything that I can do about it if you're not...at least as far as I'm willing to check.

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Disclaimer: I do not own HP

Claimer: This version of this idea is mine!

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The last month was awkward, to say the least. Petunia and Vernon had taken an unusual tact and were pretending Harry didn't exist in any way, shape, or form, while Dudley would cover his pig-tailed bum, burst into tears, and flee the room immediately whenever he saw her enter. Harry ended up spending most of her time with her new snowy owl, who she named Hedwig. It was a name Harry had seen somewhere in one of her new books.

Before September 1st rolled around, Harry made a point of cautiously approaching her uncle and asking for a ride to the King's Cross train station. He eyed her suspiciously, frowned, and demanded to see the ticket. When Vernon saw the platform number, he gave a nasty laugh and threw the ticket back at her as he sneered, "Luckily for **you**, Dudley's going into London to get that _tail_ removed before he goes to Smeltings. We'll drop you at King's Cross on the way."

Unnerved by that laugh, Harry packed all her things carefully for the trip to Hogwarts, and spent the last night tossing and turning. True to his word, Vernon drove the whole family and Harry to King's Cross, getting there at about a quarter past ten, and even helped Harry take her stuff out of the car, which was suspiciously nice of him.

Harry's suspicions were confirmed when her uncle proceeded to laugh and point out that there was no platform in between Platforms Nine and Ten, before he got back into the car and drove away with the rest of the Dursleys as fast as he could, leaving Harry coughing in the wake of his dust.

Loading her things onto a cart and wheeling it around the station, Harry searched for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, getting more and more worried when she couldn't find it anywhere. The train was supposed to leave at eleven, and at this rate she wasn't going to be on it! Asking a muggle station guard got her nowhere, even though she made certain not to mention Hogwarts or the unusual name of her platform, because there was no other train leaving at eleven o'clock.

Hedwig hooted sympathetically in her cage, and Harry stuck her fingers through the bars to stroke her owl's feathers. Well, if she missed the train, she would just have to send Hagrid a letter so that he could come and get her, right? An embarrassing start to becoming a witch, but still better than being stuck like this.

Just as she was reaching to get a quill and parchment, Harry heard a snippet of conversation from a family of red-heads going by. "Full of muggles," was what Harry heard, and perched inside of a cage on one of the family's carts was an owl…eagerly, Harry followed them.

They stopped facing the wall between Platforms Nine and Ten.

"All right, one at a time," said the mother, "Percy, you first."

One of the red heads pushed his cart towards the wall - but a crowd of people blocked Harry's view and when she looked next, he was gone. Hurriedly, she moved to catch up to the family before they all vanished without a trace.

"Okay Fred, you next," the mother said.

"Hold up there, I'm _George_," said the boy she was addressing.

"Honestly, woman, and you call yourself our mother?" added another boy who looked just like him.

"Oh, sorry, George, go on," the mother said.

Before pushing towards the wall, 'George' smirked and said "Got you mum, I am Fred" before running at the wall and vanishing - his twin following seconds later.

"Those two," the mother sighed, exasperated, "All right, who's next - yes, dearie?"

Harry blinked, realized the woman was talking to her, and pushed her cart a little closer.

"Um, excuse me," Harry hesitated, "But…I don't…I don't know how…"

"How to get to the platform?" the mother finished for her.

When Harry nodded, the mother smiled and patted Harry on the shoulder sympathetically.

"Oh its quite all right, dearie, nothing to worry about. It's Ronald's first year at Hogwarts too," the mother said, indicating her remaining son, "All you have to do is walk through the barrier between platforms nine and ten - oh, you'd best do it at a bit of a run, if you're feeling a bit nervous."

It certainly looked like a solid wall to her…Harry closed her eyes and shoved her cart at the wall at full speed, waiting for the feeling of crashing that never came - a high-pitched whistle made Harry open her eyes and look around. The wall was behind her now, and in front of her was a bright red train and a crowd of witches and wizards and their children.

Not wanting another scene like the one in the Leaky Cauldron, Harry headed towards the nearest car and tried to get her trunk onto the train. It was heavy and she couldn't get it very far up…and then it slipped out of her fingers and landed on her foot, reminding her _quite_ unnecessarily just **how** heavy the trunk happened to be.

"You want some help there?" came a voice from behind Harry.

Looking up, she saw it was the twin red-heads from before.

"Yes please," Harry said.

"Alright - get out of the way, slow slug, for the lady has requested my mighty assistance!" the first twin declared, leaping dramatically forward to grab one end of Harry's trunk.

"Away with you, foolish one, for can you not see that the lady needs the help of a _strong_ and _valiant_ warrior?" the other twin exclaimed, jumping to grab onto the other end of the trunk.

Together, they got it onboard and stowed away. Then they jumped off the train and stood in front of Harry, who was trying to hide how much she was giggling. Noticing it anyway, they kept bowing and making muscle poses and declaring the immensity of their incredible valor, until Harry was outright laughing. A few minutes later, once she got control of her mirth, Harry brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes…only to freeze when the twins' eyes riveted themselves to her forehead.

"Blimey!" one of them exclaimed, "You're her, aren't you?"

"Who?" Harry asked.

"_Harley Potter_," the twins chorused.

"Oh," Harry sighed, "Yes, I'm her - I mean, that's me."

Harry braced herself for a sudden, unpleasant flood of admiration, and sure enough one of them immediately stepped forward and took her hand. But not to shake it, as Harry found out.

"Oh, Great and Mighty Destroyer of Evil!" the twin declared, "May this lowest of worms have the honor of helping you onto the train?"

"Ignore him, Oh Great and Powerful Sorceress," the other twin cried, jumping to take Harry's other hand, "Allow me to assist you, for I am far more lowly than my brother!"

"He lies!" the first twin insisted, "Indeed, it is I who is more feeble and more unworthy than he for your attention!"

"If you're both so feeble, maybe I should be the one helping you," Harry mentioned, laughing without meaning to.

Immediately, they both let go of her hands and sat down on the platform, holding their hands up like little children who want their mothers to pick them up. Harry laughed even harder.

"FRED! GEORGE!" trumpeted the voice of the twins' mother, ending the little game.

"Right, we'll see you later Harley," the twins said, springing to their feet.

"Call me Harry," Harry told them.

The twins laughed and headed to their mother with a short "_Very well, see you later, Harry old chum_" and a "_Until later, Harry my good man!_" and leaving Harry to quickly get on the train and into her chosen compartment before anyone else spotted her. She doubted anyone was going to be as fun as 'FredandGeorge' to deal with…her sides still hurt…Harry couldn't remember laughing that hard before in her entire life!

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From the window of her compartment, Harry could see the red-heads reuniting before the train departed. Accompanying the four boys and their mother was a little red-haired girl, presumably their sister, and their mother was giving all of her children last-minute lectures.

"Can't stay long, Mother," the oldest was saying, "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves -"

"Oh, are you a _prefect_, Percy?" one of the twins interrupted, speaking with an air of great surprise, "You should have said something earlier, we simply had _no_ idea."

"Hang on, I think I can remember him saying _something_ about it," the other twin said, "Maybe once -"

"Or twice -"

"Just for a minute -"

"The whole summer -"

"Oh shut up," said Percy the Prefect.

"All right, dears, have a good term," their mother said to her other two sons, before turning to the twins and adding sternly "Now you two - this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've - you've blown up a toilet or -"

"Blown up a toilet? We've never, ever blown up a _toilet_, Mum."

"Great idea though, thanks!"

"Its _not funny_. And look after Ron."

"Don't worry, Ickle Ronnikins is safe with us."

"Shut up," said Ron.

Unfortunately for Harry's eavesdropping pleasure, the next thing one of the twins said was "Hey, Mum, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?"

Harry made certain she couldn't be seen watching as the twin continued, "You know that black-haired girl who was by us in the train station? Know who she is?"

"Who?"

"Harley Potter!"

Immediately the little red-haired girl piped up.

"Oh Mum, can I go on the train and see her, Mum, oh please…"

"You've already seen her, Ginny, the girl's not something you gawk at in a zoo. …Is she _really_, Fred? How do you know?"

"Asked her," Fred answered, "Saw her scar. Its really just like lightning."

"Poor darling - no wonder she was all alone, I had wondered…she was ever so sweet and polite, asking how to get to the platform."

"Never mind that," piped up the other twin - George, "Do you think she remembers what You-Know-Who looked like?"

"I **forbid** you to ask her that!" snapped their mother, "Don't you even dare! As if she needs reminding of _that_ on her first day at school…"

Harry tuned out the rest of the conversation, which ended shortly anyway as the train began to lurch out of the station. Harry had never tried very hard to remember her parents' death before - it would have been just another reminder that she was stuck with the Dursleys - but whenever she had remembered, all she had recalled had been a big green light. Green light in a car crash…that had never made sense before.

Thinking about it now, she suddenly also remembered a high, cold laugh that made her shiver in her seat. Pushing it away, Harry decided to enjoy her otherwise empty compartment and stare at the scenery for the whole trip to Hogwarts.

Then the door opened.

…


	11. The ride to Hogwarts

Like I may or may not have said before, this story'll be canonical-non-canon. Some things will be different and strange, others shall be the same but weird and disturbing.

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Or something like that. Read and find out!

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Disclaimer: HP not owned by me

Claimer: This plot is MINE!

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"Hey, Harry!" Fred (or George) greeted her, "Glad to see you made it on without our help after all!"

"Do a fellow bloke a favor, will you?" George (or Fred) added, pulling their younger brother into view, "Can you watch Ickle Ronnikins for us? Lee Jordan's got a huge tarantula and we're going to go see it."

"…Um, okay," Harry said.

"Right, and in case you didn't know, we're Fred and George Weasley," Fred (or George) said, "This fellow is our baby brother Ron."

"Ron, meet Harry - otherwise known as Harley Potter," George (or Fred) said, pushing the reluctant Ron into the compartment and shutting the door.

Harry watched Ron out of the corner of her eye, and Ron tried to look everywhere but at Harry. After only a minute of this, Ron swallowed nervously and finally asked, "Are…um…are you _really_ Harley Potter?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"…So you have…" Ron hesitated, "The…scar?"

"Yes, that too," Harry sighed, shoving her bangs out the way so Ron could see it.

He gave out a low whistle.

"So that's where…" Ron blushed and trailed off, embarrassed.

"Yes, though I don't remember it," Harry said.

"Not even a bit?" Ron asked.

"Well…" Harry hedged, "A big flash of green light…and this horrible man's laugh, but nothing besides that."

Apparently, Harry's ability to remember Voldemort's laughter wasn't something Ron wanted to hear about, because the red-head blushed again and looked out the window. Harry contemplated letting Ron just sit there in nervous silence while she read something, but he was so tense that Harry could just tell she'd never be able to concentrate.

"Are all your family wizards, then?" Harry asked.

Ron blushed again when he realized he was being spoken to - that was starting to get really annoying - before saying, "I think so…Mum's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"Then you must know loads more magic than I do," Harry reasoned.

"Err…I hear you lived with Muggles," Ron said, trying to change the focus of the conversation back Harry's way, "What was that like?"

"Horrible…well, most muggles are fine, I guess," Harry corrected herself, "My aunt and uncle were really bad, and my cousin was only a little bit better…wish I'd had three wizard brothers."

"Five, actually," Ron sighed, "I've got a lot to live up to. And even if I do great, its not such a big deal, because they did it first. And then there's the hand-me-downs…I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

Ron hefted the rat out of his pocket. It was a fat and rather ordinary-looking rat…its only distinguishing feature was a missing toe on one of its front paws.

"This is Scabbers," Ron introduced the rat, eyeing it with clear annoyance, "Fat little oaf, isn't he?"

"I didn't know you were allowed to bring rats as pets," Harry said, "If someone else has a cat, won't Scabbers get eaten?" 

"I wish," Ron muttered, then blushed again. "I mean, Scabbers is better than nothing, and Percy's had him for years now…I wanted an owl, but Percy got one for being made a prefect this year and we couldn't affo - I mean, there wasn't…there wasn't any chance to get one for me too…"

This was all the explanation Harry needed - the reason why Ron was being so…_blushy!_ Harry was - in his eyes - a big, rich celebrity and Ron seemed to think things had to always be focused on her and that she was also better than other people because of it…getting her bearings now, Harry began pointing out how she had had an even worse time at home than he had…at least Ron's hand-me-downs were given with love, not a need to pretend that they weren't tormenting a child.

Ron was a bit uncertain how to deal with some of the things Harry was implying, but he did offer unusual ideas about what he thought muggle technology did.

"Dad's fascinated by muggle things. He's got whole rooms of stuff, but he really likes to collect," Ron hesitated, as if worried someone might overhear, "_Plugs_."

"Plugs?" Harry blinked.

"_Plugs_," Ron said, nodding sagely, "As if we could even use them at home! We don't have ekeltricity, and couldn't get any even if Mum would let us get some! Magic makes the muggle things that run off ekeltricity stop working, you know."

"I didn't," Harry said, "But I guess that means you're not related to any muggles?"

"Maybe by marriage with someone I think, but otherwise our whole family's what they call pureblooded," Ron said, "But its not like its that important…at least to us. Some other families, they think differently, but…"

Looking vaguely uncomfortable, Ron changed the subject.

"So, Harley -"

"Err - Ron, please," Harry interrupted, "Don't call me Harley."

"Isn't it your name?" Ron blinked.

"I'd rather be called Harry," Harry insisted, "Honestly, I sound like a variety of motorbike or something otherwise. Anyway, you were saying?"

"Right…so, um, Harl-_Harry_," Ron corrected himself, "What House do you think you'll be put in at school? I'm hoping for Gryffindor, you know, the whole Weasley family's been in that house for generations…I'd probably go mad if I were stuck in Hufflepuff, or even worse, in _Slytherin_."

Ron shuddered. Before Harry could ask what was so bad about Slytherin, the door opened again. Standing in the corridor was a little old lady - a witch - with a cart full of various treats.

"Anything off the cart, dearies?" the witch asked.

"No thanks, Mum made me sandwiches," Ron admitted with another blush, pulling out several squashed sandwiches that didn't look very appetizing.

Harry, for her part, still had plenty of money, and figured that snacks wouldn't be too expensive…so she bought something of everything off the cart and paid in Sickles. Instead of Mars Bars and other muggle candies, though, the Hogwarts Express had Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, Pumpkin Pastries, and more odd sweets.

Seeing Ron fiddle with his unpleasant lunch, Harry insisted he share what she'd bought. Thankfully, the youngest Weasley male was gentlemanly enough not to refuse a lady, no matter how embarrassed he was, and shortly they were fishing out various beans and comparing the flavors.

"Careful," Ron said, his mouth still half-full of a Pumpkin Pastry as he unwrapped one of the Chocolate Frogs, "When they say every flavor, they mean EVERY flavor. There's chocolate, peppermint, apple, and marmalade…and then there's chalk, tripe, onion, and grass…Fred told me he reckons he got a boogey flavored one once."

Gingerly, Harry tried a bluish one. Instead of being blueberry, it was seawater.

By the time she had gotten further into the bag, Harry had tasted chicken, grapefruit, bacon-flavored crisps, cherry, cheese, liver, butter, lettuce, milk, strawberry, and even a very strange one, whole wheat toast, slightly burnt and spread with grape jelly. Harry also accepted two from Ron's bag that the red-head refused to touch: a gray one, which turned out to be pepper, making Harry sneeze, and a brown one that ended up being triple-fudge mousse, to Harry's delight.

After that, Harry went to try a Chocolate Frog. It leapt out of its package, heading right for her face and scaring her rather badly, but stopped moving after Harry took a bite out of it. Inside the package was a little card with a picture on it.

"Each frog comes with a card," Ron explained, "I've collected nearly all of them, 'cept Agrippa. Which did you get?"

"It says…Albus Dumbledore," Harry said, reading the card.

"Oh, I've got hundreds of him," Ron said dismissively, leaving Harry to look over her new card - only to find the picture was blank.

"He's gone!"

"What d'ya expect?" Ron said, "Can't expect him to hang around all day long, can you?"

As Harry watched, Dumbledore sidled back into his frame and gave her a happy little wink. Between herself and Ron, they finished up the rest of the food very quickly - except for the sandwiches, which had been pushed to the side and conveniently forgotten about completely.

The door to their compartment opened again, and a boy stuck his head in.

"Have you seen a toad at all?" the boy asked, and when Ron and Harry shook their heads no, headed down the corridor crying, "He keeps getting away from me!"

"Poor guy," Ron said, "Still, if I'd gotten a toad, I'd have chucked it as soon as I could…granted, I've got Scabbers, so I guess I can't talk."

Ron indicated the sleeping rat on his lap.

"Say," Ron said next, "I've got a spell to turn him yellow, to make him more interesting…want to see?"

"Sure!" Harry said, and watched as Ron pulled out his wand - a dented, battered thing with something white sticking out the end.

"Unicorn hair's falling out," Ron muttered, and raised the wand.

Before he could say the spell, the door opened again.

…


	12. Arrival and Entry

This chapter's up a little earlier than usual, for those of you paying attention to that sort of thing.

Why? Mostly because I felt like it.

What? You were expecting something deep and meaningful? Oy...

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Disclaimer: I do not own HP

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The toadless boy from before was back, this time being lead by a bushy-haired girl.

"Have either of you seen Neville's toad?" the girl asked.

"We told him last time, no," Ron said, annoyed at being interrupted.

"Oh, are you doing magic?" the girl continued, unfazed, "Let's see then."

Now with an even bigger audience, Ron cleared his throat and said:

_"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,  
Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."_

A few sparks flew out, not even waking the sleeping rat, but nothing else happened, and especially not Scabbers changing colors. Ron flushed red to his ears in complete mortification.

"Well, that doesn't really seem like a real spell, now does it?" the bushy-haired girl said, "I've done some of the spells in the assigned books over the summer and they seemed quite easy for me…though it was such a surprise to get my letter, what with my parents both being dentists, but I am glad to be accepted to Hogwarts, I've read all about it and its supposed to be the best school of magic ever built. My name's Hermione Granger, and you are?"

She said this all extremely fast.

"Err…Ron Weasley," said Ron.

"Harley Potter," Harry added after another moment's hesitation.

"Are you really?" Hermione Granger said, not sounding very surprised at all, "I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books for background reading and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_…goodness, you didn't even know," she added, seeing Harry's expression, "Well, I would have found out everything I could if it were me, you know, and there's probably dozens and dozens more books that have all sorts of things about you written in them."

The boy who had lost his toad shifted nervously in the doorway, drawing Hermione Granger's attention back his way.

"This is Neville, of course," she said, "Do let us know if you come across his toad, oh, and we're almost to Hogwarts, so you really ought to change into your school robes before we get there, you know."

With that, Hermione Granger left, taking Neville with her. A glance outside the window showed that it was getting dark, and in fact the train was starting to go much more slowly than before, so Harry and Ron pulled on their robes before sitting to wait out the rest of the ride.

Ron was blushing again afterwards, despite how they had both just put the robes on over their regular - their muggle - clothing and it took the red-haired boy a minute to get himself back together in order to ask, "So, Harry, what's your Quidditch team?"

When Harry readily admitted that she hadn't the faintest idea what Quidditch was, Ron began eagerly explaining. Apparently, eleven-year-old boys spent all their time talking about their favorite interests, and Qudditch was Ron's. He was a very good explainer, and much more interesting than that Draco boy from Diagon Alley when talking about something that excited him - Ron would wave his hands in the air and jump up and down and walk around the compartment, demonstrating as well as describing the move.

Harry was left with the vague understanding that Qudditch was something like rugby on brooms where players were all chased by cannonballs, and her interest in seeing a game for herself was peaking when the train finally came to a halt.

As soon as they stopped, a voice echoed through the whole train, saying "We have reached Hogwarts. Students have five minutes to disembark. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken up to the school separately."

The five minutes were spent pushing their way through the crowd of bigger, older students - Harry was left wincing when her feet got stepped on several times - but when she and Ron finally reached the platform Harry spotted a welcome sight. Standing much taller than everyone else and waving a big lantern was Hagrid.

"Firs' years over here!" the gamekeeper yelled, "Firs' years! Firs' years with me!"

Ron hesitated, intimidated by Hagrid's size, but Harry rushed right over and tugged on Hagrid's arm. Hagrid looked down in curiosity, spotted her, and gave her a big hairy grin before going back to calling over the other new students.

"C'mon, follow me - anymore firs' years? Mind yer step now! Firs' years, this way now, step up!"

Hagrid led the nervous first year students down a dark path, a different one than the older students were taking. It seemed pretty scary - Neville was sniffling, although that _might_ have been because he was still minus his toad - but Hagrid merely cautioned them to watch their steps, keep up, and that "Yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts is comin' up, right past this bend…"

Sure enough, it was. Against the pitch-black, star-filled sky, the castle on top of the cliff seemed almost invisible, all dark and filled with thousands of glowing windows. With all of this being reflected by the dark lake between them and the castle, Hogwarts looked **supremely** magical and something inside Harry laughing and crying because this place felt, she wasn't really sure, but it felt right to her.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid said next, pointing to the fleet of little boats lining the shore in front of them.

Catching Ron's arm - he was still staring at the castle - Harry walked up to the boats and picked one. Much to her surprise, Hermione climbed in right after her, tugging Neville along to join them.

"It's really quite amazing," Hermione started talking, "Hogwarts is carefully enchanted to keep muggles from being able to find it…if they ever manage to get in eyeshot, the only thing they see is an old ruin with a '_Condemned, Unsafe_' sign, you know, I read all about it…"

Hermione didn't seem to be talking to anyone in particular, so Harry looked around a little bit more, only to hear an unwelcome familiar voice from the next boat declare, "How good to see you again, lovely lady!"

'Oh no,' Harry mentally groaned, and turned to see that yes, Draco from Diagon Alley was sitting in the next boat and smiling at her.

"I told you we would meet again," Draco continued, ignoring the puzzled looks the other three very big boys - hold on, one of them was a girl - were giving him.

"Err…you certainly did," Harry admitted, and was utterly relieved to hear Hagrid shout, "Everyone in? Right then - **FORWARD!**"

The boats moved all at once, and much to Harry's relief Draco's boat moved to be one of the last in line while hers was extra close to Hagrid's, which was in the front. Draco merely waved goodbye to her and Harry rolled her eyes, safe in the darkness. This was something new…Harry had never actually seen anyone completely _besotted_ before…

"Heads down!" Hagrid yelled as they reached the cliff.

The boats pushed their way through a curtain of ivy, entering an underground cavern with a rocky beach that the boats pushed onto and stopped at. Hagrid checked all the boats as they landed and people got out, making certain no one forgot anything important.

"Oi, you there!" Hagrid said, lifting something out of one of the boats and looking Neville's way, "Is this your toad?"

"Trevor!" Neville cried, hugging his toad to him when Hagrid handed it over.

That finished, Hagrid led the way up a flight of stairs and stopped in front of a pair of huge wooden doors.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"

Hagrid raised an enormous fist and knocked three times on the castle door. It opened right away, revealing a stern-looking black-haired witch in emerald-green robes.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said. 

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

Professor McGonagall lead the first years through the extremely large entrance hall, past a doorway that the entire rest of the school seemed to be hidden behind, and into a smaller, empty chamber just down the hall. Once everyone was inside, she closed the door and faced them.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall said, "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you may take seats in the Great Hall you must be sorted into your houses. This Sorting is very important, for while you attend Hogwarts your House will serve as your family. You will have classes with your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each has a noble history and produced its fair share of outstanding witches and wizards. During the year, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking shall lose house points, and at the end of the year the house cup shall be awarded to whichever house possesses the most house points. I expect you will all be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Ceremony will take place in a few minutes. I **suggest**," McGonagall said, eyeing a few of the first years, "That you take this time to smarten yourselves up as much as you can."

She turned and walked out the door. Most of the students in the room fidgeted, trying to fix ruffled hair and wrinkled robes, while others worried about what they would have to do in the upcoming Sorting Ceremony. Harry would have asked Ron what he thought, but the red-haired boy looked pale so she didn't bother him. McGonagall came back soon enough and lead them all into the Great Hall.

The Great Hall certainly lived up to its name - it was fantastic! Lit by thousands of floating candles, it was filled by four long tables where the other students were sitting. There was another table at the front of the Hall where the teachers got to sit. Harry glanced up once, just out of curiosity, only to gasp when she saw that instead of a roof, there was only the night sky above.

"It's bewitched to look exactly like the sky outside," Harry heard Hermione saying to no one, "I read about it in _Hogwarts, A History_."

Harry made a sheepish mental note to find and read that book as the line of first years came to a stop. They were facing down a stool with a very tattered old hat on it. Were students supposed to pull rabbits or something out of the hat that would tell them which house they were supposed to go to? Everyone in the hall was staring at it - much to Harry and the other first years' astonishment, a rip like a mouth opened in the front of the hat and it began to sing.

It was mostly a song about hats, from what Harry could tell, but the gist was that the Sorting Hat would be able to tell which house the person who wore it belonged. Ron looked less pale already. Harry still felt a bit queasy, though.

"When I call your name," McGonagall said, stepping up next to the hat and pulling out a long scroll, "You will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbot, Hannah!"

A girl with blonde pigtails stumbled forward, pulled on the hat, and sat down.

A moment later -

"**HUFFLEPUFF!**" shouted the hat.

Hannah put the hat back on the stool and headed for the cheering table as "Bones, Susan" went to take her turn.

"**HUFFLEPUFF!**" the hat shouted again.

The next boy, "Boot, Terry" became a Ravenclaw, as did the girl after him, but the next girl, "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor. Immediately afterwards, "Bulstrode, Millicent", the huge girl Harry had seen in Draco's boat, became the first Slytherin.

Looking over at the Slytherin table, Harry noted that quite a lot of them seemed to be very big and tough-looking. If that was to be Harry's house, she'd be quite literally stepped on and crushed before the first week was out - the very thought of which made her nausea twice as bad. The fact that Harry was probably going to be picked last - familiar as that was - was very little comfort.

…


	13. Sorting Feast

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for!

_HARRY'S_ (as realistic as I can figure it) _SORTING!_

Don't everybody start applauding at once, yo.

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter not owned here

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The Sorting continued. Sometimes the hat decided right away, other times the student was forced to sit and wait until it was finally decided.

"Granger, Hermione!" said McGonagall.

"I hope I'm not in her house," Ron whispered as the bushy-haired girl eagerly ran over and jammed the hat on her head.

He groaned as the hat shouted "**GRYFFINDOR!**" seconds later.

When "Longbottom, Neville" was called, the boy who kept losing his toad made a terrible impression by tripping and falling on his way to the stool. Then the hat took over five minutes to determine Neville's house, before picking 'GRYFFINDOR'…at which point Neville made it all the way to his table and sat down before remembering that he was supposed to leave the hat on the stool, blushing furiously as the whole school laughed at him.

When McGonagall called for "Malfoy, Draco!", Draco from Diagon Alley strutted to the front - pausing only to wink at Harry - and grabbed the hat. It screamed "**SLYTHERIN!**" before it even touched his head.

Next was "Moon", then "Nott", then "Parkinson", then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" (Ravenclaw and Gryffindor respectively), then a "Perks, Sally-Anne", and finally…

"Potter, Harlequin!" McGonagall called.

As Harry stepped forward, she was painfully aware of the stares she was getting, as well as the whispering that was filling the Hall.

"_Potter_, did she say?

"_The_ Harley Potter?"

As if things could only get worse, when Harry sat on the stool and put the hat on her head, it slid down past her nose. She just knew that she looked like such a stupid little kid…the only plus was that she couldn't see them staring at her anymore.

"Hmm…"

Harry blinked, realized it was the voice of the hat, and listened carefully.

"I see," the hat continued it its tiny inside voice, "Plenty of talent, yes…not a bad mind, not bad at all…there's no shortage of courage in here, either, along with this nice desire to prove yourself…but where could I put you?"

'_Is it asking me?_' Harry thought frantically, '_How am **I** supposed to know?_'

"Perhaps you had a preference, many people do," the hat explained, sounding amused, "Honestly, I could put you in any house and you'd do well easily…you're loyal to a fault, your memory and wit are sharp as nails…hmm, except that these don't seem to be very close to the forefront of your mind…well, not that they aren't splendid houses, but in this case, perhaps not Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff after all…"

Distantly, Harry noted the whole Great Hall was getting louder as people wondered what was taking so long. If the hat took too long, McGonagall might take it off, say that the whole thing was a mistake, and send her back to the Dursleys!

'_I don't care where I go!_' Harry thought at the hat, '_Not a bit! Put me wherever you want but don't you dare send me back to those **people!**_'

"Ah hah, excellent! Things were too balanced to choose before, but this tips the scales quite nicely!" the hat cheerfully exclaimed, "Very well, young lady, it's my pleasure to welcome you into **GRYFFINDOR!**"

The hat roared the last word out to the waiting hall. Harry pulled off the hat, set it down on the stool, and shakily headed over to the Gryffindor table. She felt light-headed enough not to notice the bellowing cheers, the thunderous applause, or even the crazy victory dance Fred and George were doing on their chairs. Ron waved to her and Harry felt a bit better…looking past Ron, she could see Draco Malfoy shrug his shoulders and wave slyly to her as well. Harry decided to ignore him, since Slytherins and Gryffindors didn't seem to like each other, and when she reached her seat Harry hid her face out of sight in her arms in hope that the dizziness would go away and that people would stop staring at her. At least the first part came true.

The rest of the Sorting, meanwhile, seemed very anticlimactic in comparison with only four more people to go. "Thomas, Dean" became a Gryffindor, "Turpin, Lisa" became a Ravenclaw, and then it was Ron's turn. He looked like he was about to throw up, but a second later Ron became a Gryffindor and he was all smiles again.

"Well done, Ronald, just excellent," Percy Weasley congratulated his brother.

Percy was sitting several few places down, while Ron plopped in the chair next to Harry. Neville was on Harry's other side. Sitting across from Harry was a silvery, transparent man in a ruff that Harry was vaguely surprised to realize was a ghost.

"Zabini, Blaise" became a Slytherin, and McGonagall took the Sorting Hat away. At the teacher's table, the man Harry recognized from her Frog Card as Dumbledore stood up and spread his arms wide open, looking very twinkly and delighted with the world.

"Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!" Dumbledore declared, "Before we begin, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: '_Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!_' Thank you!"

Dumbledore sat back down, and everyone else clapped and cheered. Harry only blinked. Why didn't the Frog Card mention he was a complete nutter?

"Potatoes, Harry?" Ron asked, drawing Harry's attention back to the table.

She gaped in astonishment - where before had sat empty platters and plates, now sat platters and plates filled to their brims with more food than Harry had ever seen in one place, not even the massive meals Petunia had made for Christmas and Dudley's birthday dinners, whenever they were celebrated at home. Every sort of dinner Harry could think of was on the table, including - for some reason - peppermint humbugs.

"G'wan, izall guuf," Ron said through his already full mouth.

Even as Harry helped herself to a little bit of food, her stomach was gurgling in warning. Thanks to her loving relations' restrictions, Harry wasn't used to eating lots of food all at once. The few times she had tried (and succeeded in) eating large amounts, she'd been dreadfully sick, and Harry sadly recalled that she had already eaten something a few hours ago. Granted, Ron had eaten the majority of the candy on the train, but still, to be careful, Harry only took small portions of a few things.

While everyone else gorged themselves, Harry took this opportunity to look at the teacher's table. Hagrid grinned at her right away, and Harry waved back. Down the table, McGonagall was talking about something with Dumbledore, and the other teachers were either eating or talking amongst themselves.

At the farthest end of the table from the Gryffindor table sat Professors Quirrell and Snape. Quirrell was picking at his food nervously, and looked very weird in his new turban…at least, Harry assumed it was new, since he hadn't been wearing it in the Leaky Cauldron. Snape, on the other hand, was staring around the Great Hall with a look of extreme loathing on his face.

Snape's gaze was almost to where Harry was sitting when Quirrell turned to talk to the Potions Professor. Presented with the back of Quirrell's head, Harry started as her scar suddenly flared with a sharp, hot pain.

"Yuh a'ight?" Ron mumbled through his food.

Harry nodded and Ron immediately distracted himself by eating more food. The pain faded as quickly as it had come, and Harry had enough control over her reflexes that no one else at the Gryffindor table had noticed a thing - in fact, all she had even done was jump a little bit in her seat and wince.

But where had the pain _come_ from?

Harry had had the scar as far back as she could recall - technically, ever since Voldemort had tried to kill her - but it had never zapped her like that before…was it because she was around witches and wizards, instead of being stuck with Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley? Or maybe some of the evil magic Voldemort had probably tried to kill her with was still inside of her scar and it was reacting to being inside of Hogwarts? But the pain was gone and showed no signs of coming back, not even when Harry checked where her head had been pointing.

Behind her was only a bare patch of the Great Hall's stone wall, and up at the teacher's table, Quirrell was eating his food more steadily, though he still looked nervous, while Snape was -_ he was looking right at her!_ Harry dropped her gaze back to her plate - long-since picked clean - and decided to forget about this for now.

Dinner finished, and the remaining food vanished off the table. Desserts of every sort imaginable appeared in its place, as did more peppermint humbugs. Harry let herself enjoy some ice cream, painfully conscious of the way the ghost across the table from her was staring longingly at the food on her plate.

"I wonder if it still tastes as lovely as I remember," the ghost said.

"…I imagine it probably does," Harry offered, "Err…I'm sorry you can't taste it anymore, sir."

The ghost perked up.

"Ah, you don't need to feel sorry at all," the ghost said, rising to float at a more standing level, "Oh, and here I've been simply terrible today, please allow me to introduce myself! I am Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, the Resident Ghost of Gryffindor Tower, at your service."

"I know who you are!" Ron exclaimed - apparently full enough to chose talking over more eating, "My brothers told me about you - you're Nearly Headless Nick!"

"I prefer to be called _Sir Nicholas de_ -" the ghost began stiffly. 

"Wait, wait! How can someone be only nearly headless?" Hermione piped up, interrupting her own conversation with Percy Weasley on the Transfiguration curriculum for First Years, "Either you are or you aren't, anything else is a logical impossibility!"

Nick looked extremely irritated now. He grabbed one of his ears and tugged on it hard, yanking his head to the side, where it hung from his neck by an inch or so of uncut flesh. Obviously, Nick had been almost beheaded by an incompetent executioner.

"Logically impossible enough for you?" Nick asked the staring collection of new students, and when no one answered, tipped his head back on and floated down to the other end of the table, muttered some things about 'Silly first years with their preconceived notions'.

"My apologies, I should have mentioned it earlier, Nick can be a bit touchy about that sometimes," Percy told them.

Dessert cleared away, and the school quieted and turned to face the teacher's table, where Dumbledore had risen from his seat.

"Ah, and now that we are all watered and fed, it is time for the start-of-term announcements!" Dumbledore smiled, "First years should note that the forest on the grounds is, as its name implies, Forbidden to all pupils. A few of our older students would do well to remember this as well."

For some reason, almost everyone in the hall briefly glanced over at Fred and George Weasley.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors," Dumbledore continued, "Qudditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

A couple of first years laughed, but no one else did. Harry wasn't one of them - she was busily observing the serious expressions most of the older students had. Apparently, nutter or not, when Dumbledore said something was dangerous, people listened. Either everyone else was really gullible or the Headmaster wasn't as crazy as he made himself out to be.

"And now, before we toddle off to bed, let us sing the school song!" Dumbledore cried.

Dumbledore made gold ribbon come out of the tip of his wand, which floated in the air and made words. The other teachers looked decidedly pained with this suggestion, and Harry wondered if maybe the Headmaster really WAS nutty as a fruitcake after all.

"Everyone pick your favorite tune," Dumbledore said, "And off we go!"

The Great Hall was a painful cacophony during the song, with everyone finishing at different times. Fred and George finished well after everyone else, singing the song as a very slow funeral march. After that, the school headed out the door and for their dormitories. Percy led the way up the stairs (which moved), past dozens of paintings and portraits (who pointed, stared, and whispered), and through several doorways (all hidden in some fashion) before reaching a tall painting of a fat woman in a pink dress.

"Password?" the lady asked.

"Caput Draconis," Percy replied, and the portrait swung open.

Inside was the Gryffindor Common Room - all red and gold - and Percy pointed out which staircases were the girls' and which were the boys'. Ron waved Harry goodbye as he headed up the boys' staircase, while Harry followed Hermione and the others up the girls'.

"_Ooh_, I want THIS one!" the other two girls, Lavender-something and one of the Patils, squealed, rushing towards the four-poster beds.

There was more annoying noises as the girls discovered there were other people's trunks at the feet of their chosen beds, at which point Hermione began explaining that Hogwarts had a system of choosing beds for students, somehow related to the Sorting Hat, and that the trunks were brought in the second the student's house was decided…Harry, who was tired now, ignored both Hermione's lecture and Lavender's inquiry of if Par-something Patil would trade beds with her to plop down on her bed, yank the curtains shut and…Harry had no idea she'd been this tired, because she fell right asleep without getting a chance to change.

…


	14. Let the Learning Begin

Thanks for reviewing, and for coming to see this next chapter. Guess I must be doing something right after all!

As per a question I got, here is the only answer I can give you: I don't know how the beds get chosen. Like many people, I tune Hermione out when she starts giving out too much information. As far as I know, its magic.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (duh)

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Harry didn't sleep that well on the first night - she was a light sleeper and something kept waking her up, something about a hat and green light that she couldn't remember - but she started sleeping better every night afterwards. Hogwarts was a wonderful place, indeed…or at least it **would** be wonderful if everyone would just stop staring at her and whispering about her in voices that were very much not 'hush-hush'.

Getting around was hard enough without having all these people to deal with. The staircases at Hogwarts liked to move around when no one was watching, and had trick steps, and sometimes vanished completely while you were walking on it if it wasn't every other Tuesday…

If the stairs weren't hard enough, there were the doors to contend with: there were doors that needed to be found, behind paintings and tapestries, and other doors that needed to be asked to open, or argued with, only to turn out that they lead the opposite way you were going, or went backwards, making you walk right out of the doorway you had just entered, and there were even ones that went nowhere at all…andthen there were the stairs _and_ doors that weren't actually stairs OR doors, but were just the walls and floor having a bit of fun pretending.

For the first couple of days, Harry followed Lavender and Parvati's example and stuck close to the ever-chatty Hermione when going from place to place. Hermione had a knack for finding her way around Hogwarts - probably from all her reading about the place - but once they got the hang of things Parvati and Lavender ditched her. Well, to be more specific, they ditched Hermione.

They would have stayed around Harry, giggling and twittering like nitwits, but Harry had been doubling back to find Ron - he got lost every day, ever since school started - and since Lavender and Parvati were 'normal' eleven year old girls and Ron was an eleven year old boy…that settled that.

One time Harry came back to find that Ron was trying to force his way into a locked door that lead in the opposite direction of the class they were both supposed to be heading for. Unfortunately, that door was also the entrance to the forbidden corridor on the third floor, and Filch caught them before Harry could get Ron away. The caretaker's wheezy diatribe on how he would punish them for their wicked ways was only interrupted when Quirrell happened by and rescued them.

If getting to the classes was hard, the lessons themselves were all so very much worse. There was weekly Astronomy, held late and at night, and three times a week was Herbology, held in the greenhouses behind the school, and then there was History of Magic, taught by Professor Binns, who - as Ron put it - was the only teacher to ever manage to bore himself to death. Death, unfortunately, had not put an end to Binns' boring lectures, as he was the castle's only teaching ghost.

Charms - taught by tiny Professor Flitwick - was a more fun and useful class, and during roll call on the first day he gave an excited squeak and fell off his chair when he called Harry's name.

Transfiguration, however, was work. Hard work, even, and McGonagall was a stern taskmistress. As a demonstration, she changed her desk into a pig and back - reminding Harry of Dudley - before setting the class to making needles out of matchsticks.

Hermione and Harry were the only ones to get their matchsticks silver or pointy by the end of class, and Hermione did it first. Harry watched her do it, and with a vague idea of what needed to happen changed her matchstick just as McGonagall came by to check on her progress. The no-nonsense teacher was so delighted by this abundant evidence of talent that she gave the two of them two house points each and spent the rest of the class describing to the other first year Gryffindors how much farther along Harry and Hermione were compared to them.

The last new class was Potions with Snape. It was a Double class, meaning that Gryffindor would be taking the class with the students of another house, and unfortunately - according to Ron that morning - they were going to be stuck with the Slytherins.

"Snape's a legend for how much he favors the Slytherins over everybody else all the time," Ron said as they headed down to the dungeons for class, "He's their Head of House, of course, but my brothers say he's always really unfair, besides being an all-around nasty bloke. Too bad McGonagall doesn't favor us, huh?"

"I guess," Harry replied.

Harry, unlike Ron, had already met Snape in person, and had her own ideas on how he worked. She was spared the ordeal of trying to explain this complexity to Ron when the mail came in the Great Hall.

Hogwarts made mail-time eerie and disturbing, especially for the muggle born and raised students. Whenever the sky was cloudy outside, the Great Hall's ceiling was also clouded, and then it looked like nature had gone berserk when it started raining owls of every shape, breed, and size from the heavens. But you got used to it.

Harry hadn't expected to get a single piece of mail - everyone else was getting letters and any items that had been forgotten, courtesy of their parents…pity she didn't have any of those - but right on the second or third day owls had started landing on her breakfast plate bearing gifts. Some were labeled, and came with notes thanking Harry over and over again for her 'heroic triumph over You-Know-Who', while others came with no names at all, apparently sent by Harry's more secretive admirers. And while most of the presents were small fruit baskets that sang, or little dancing chocolate boxes, there had also been the rainbow-spark-spitting hair-clips and the glow-in-the-dark earrings that were wand-activated…

Ron and any other male Gryffindor nearby gladly accepted the free food - Harry made a point to shove it their way as soon as she got it - while Lavender and Parvati were more than happy to give the girlish presents a good home. And if word got back to these people that Harley Potter didn't want their stupid presents, well, them getting mad and never bothering her again suited Harry just fine.

Today Harry got three singing fruit baskets - Ron didn't even bother to ask first anymore, he just reached over and yanked out the fruit, scattering the baskets over the table and ignoring their cries of distress - two boxes of chocolate - only one of which danced, but whether or not the other one was muggle candy made no difference to Seamus or Dean - and a tiny shiny chain-thing that Parvati identified as a silver choker necklace which, coincidentally, would be just _perfect_ for her twin sister in Ravenclaw.

As usual, Hermione only looked up from re-reading her textbooks long enough to frown at Harry's treatment of her admirers' gifts, and whether or not anyone else in the Hall was taking note of this, Harry never bothered to turn around and find out.

Lastly came Hedwig, Harry's snowy owl and usually the only owl that ever came to Harry without any silly presents. Today, though, she was carrying Harry a letter. Harry let the owl sit on her shoulder and gave Hedwig some bacon to snack on as she read.

"_**Dear Harry**_," said the letter, "_**How about coming by my hut for a cup of tea today at four o'clock? I want to hear all about your first week at school. Send us back a reply with your owl. Sincerely Hagrid.**_"

Borrowing a quill from Ron, Harry flipped the note over and scribbled "_**Yes, sure I can come, see you there Hagrid, signed Harry**_" on the back. Hedwig accepted some head-stroking and another side of the bacon, before winging off with the return letter for Hagrid.

It was a good thing Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because Potions turned out to be Harry's _worst_ experience of the week.

In Diagon Alley, Harry had gotten the impression that Snape was not a friendly man, and at the Opening Feast, it had been clear that the Potions teacher disliked most, if not all, of the children he was supposed to be teaching. But by the end of her first class with the man, Harry was certain of at least one thing: Snape might seriously dislike just about everyone he saw, but he had a special level of distaste reserved just for Harley Potter.

When taking the first roll, Snape paused after Harry's name and snidely added, "Our newest celebrity," making the Slytherin side of the room burst into giggles.

As the roll continued onwards, Harry became uncomfortably aware that most of the Slytherins were openly staring at her. From most of the girls and some of the boys, these were all hostile glares, but a lot of the other boys were giving Harry serious appraising looks that made her feel even more uncomfortable. Draco Malfoy, the one Harry had been the most concerned about before class, was looking right at Snape, apparently utterly _fascinated_ by the subject they would all be learning.

"There is to be no foolish wand-waving in this class. You are all here," Snape said as soon as he finished taking roll, "To learn the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. As it is, I don't expect many of you to understand anything in this class…most will not possess the required intelligence…the needed talent…"

Snape's voice was low, but the room was deathly quiet: Snape, like McGonagall, had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.

"But, to those lucky few…" Snape continued, "I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses…you can learn to brew Glory, bottle Fame, and even put a stopper on Death…if you aren't all as great a load of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

Snape's eyes scanned the classroom, apparently looking for something…whether or not he found it, the next thing the professor said was "Ms. Potter!"

Harry sat up straighter in her seat.

"Ms. Potter, can you tell me what would happen if I mixed an infusion of wormwood with powdered root of asphodel?" Snape asked, his tone so bland it was practically mocking.

Hermione's hand shot towards the ceiling. Judging from that, and from Ron's mutter of 'what the bloody heck is wormwood?', this wasn't something most people knew about, and Harry had to shake her head and reply, "I don't know, sir."

"_You don't know_," Snape repeated, more openly mocking now, "Did the idea of opening a textbook fail to cross your mind, Ms. Potter?"

The Slytherins snickered, and Harry inwardly frowned. Of course she'd read through all her books at least once, but it wasn't like Harry had a photographic memory! Of the stuff from her books that had anything to do with potions, only a couple of the weirder-sounding words had really stuck in Harry's brain.

"Tell me, Ms. Potter," Snape continued, "Where should you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

And wouldn't you know it, but THAT was one of the weirder words Harry had actually managed to remember. To Harry's side, Hermione's hand was straining towards the ceiling, as she obviously knew the answer. But as Harry figured things, bezoar started with b, as in Billy goat, therefore…

"Inside the stomach of a goat, sir," Harry replied, trying to make her voice sound more confident than she really was at the moment.

It was more embarrassing to guess wrong than to not guess at all, after all, but judging from Snape's raised eyebrow and surprised expression, Harry had managed to get it right after all!

"And what does a bezoar _do_, Ms. Potter?" the Potions professor added.

"Err…it cures poison?" Harry offered - she could only remember that it was something with poison, so she had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

"Are you **asking** me the answer or telling it to me, Ms. Potter?" Snape replied, openly sneering at Harry now, while the Slytherins laughed a little louder and harder, "But perhaps we should try something a bit more **easy** for you…tell me, Ms. Potter, what are the differences between wolfsbane, aconite, and monkshood?"

Hermione was pushing her hand so high in the air that she had to stand up in order to keep it there, staring desperately at the teacher that refused to acknowledge her knowledge. Snape wasn't about to call on the other witch, though, and so Harry, drawing a complete blank, had to shake her head and say, "I don't know, sir."

"Obviously," Snape sneered, "It seems that fame must not be everything after all."

The Slytherin side laughed, while the Gryffindor side muttered angry things about Snape under their breaths.

"Put your hand down," Snape snapped at Hermione, who did so reluctantly, "And due to your abysmal lack of preparedness for this class, Ms. Potter, you have just lost a point for Gryffindor."

Before the outrage on the Gryffindor side could get any worse, Snape added, "And for your information, wormwood and asphodel combine to form a sedative so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death, bezoars are used to cure the majority of all known poisons, and monkshood, wolfsbane, and aconite are all the exact same plant."

There was a moment of silence, broken when Snape snapped, "Well? Why aren't you writing this down?" at the class in general.

After hastily scribbling those random facts down, Snape made the class divide into pairs and set them to making a simple remedy for boils. While the students weighed nettles and crushed snake fangs, Snape wandered the rows supervising, alternating between making crushing remarks about the Gryffindors' potions and praising the Slytherins' potions far more than they deserved.

Snape seemed to favor Draco Malfoy especially, and was just in the middle of describing to the entire class the perfect way the blonde-haired boy was stewing his horned slugs when screams erupted from the Gryffindor side of the room.

Neville and Seamus' cauldron had gone through a meltdown and was now a twisted metal lump fused to the ground. As for their potion, it was spreading along the floor, making everyone else climb onto their stools for safety. Neville, who had been immediately soaked, was whimpering as angry boils sprouted all over his face and hands, and probably even more on parts of his body no one could see.

"Idiot boy!" Snape raged, whisking away the mess with a flick of his wand as he rushed over, "I suppose you forgot not to add the porcupine quills until after taking it off the fire?"

Snape ordered Seamus to take Neville to the Hospital Wing, then turned on the nearest pair of students - Ron and Harry.

"And why didn't you warn Longbottom not to make such an obvious mistake, Ms. Potter? Thought making him look bad would win you back your lost prestige? Now that's **two** points you've lost for Gryffindor."

And with that, class finally ended.

…


	15. Flying Lesson Part One

A Word on the Draco/Harry Dynamic: Something people might not have noticed in the canon that I work with in this story is the relationship between those lovable foes, Draco and Harry.

Starting right at the beginning of their Hogwarts school careers, Canon!Draco and Canon!Harry do not get along. This is because they have clashing personalities. But the reason they end up as '_arch-enemies_', instead of just '_indifferent people in different Houses_', is really very obvious. Draco comes to Hogwarts as a Malfoy, with the power of that name giving him high social status right away. And then you have Harry, who isn't as well-off as Draco, but has the unbeatable 'Boy-Who-Lived' trump card sending things in his favor. Because they're males of the same age in the same group, one of them has to be the most important, and thus, conflict is born!

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The difference between Canon!Draco&Harry and MyFic!Draco&Harry is that because they aren't the same gender, Harry's 'Girl-Who-Lived' status isn't a threat to Draco. Everything else is mostly peer pressure.

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Why yes, I did take Anthropology **AND** Sociology. Why do you ask?

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: This is my fic and my crazy ideas, as far as I know anyway

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"That Snape! What a load! He tells us to only work in pairs and has the nerve to take points away when you do what he says? What a greasy old git he is!"

"Ron, its been days and days since that lesson, you can stop raging on my behalf now," Harry mentioned without looking up from her homework, "Plus, I don't think he's really that old."

"Well, he's still a greasy snarky git," Ron grumbled, "…Is that McGonagall's transfiguration essay, Harry?"

"Yes," Harry said, scribbling more with her quill.

"But we only got it yesterday and it's not due for another day!" Ron blinked, then shrugged, "Ah well, I guess I - ooh, what's that?"

McGonagall had walked into the Gryffindor Common Room, pined a sheet to the notice board, and was now surrounded by students with homework essay questions. Harry got another few inches done as Ron pushed his way across the crowded room to check out the notice. When the red-headed boy got back, Harry found herself perplexed by his sudden change of expression. It was now half joyful and half sour.

"That notice says we're starting Flying Lessons next week," Ron explained grumpily, sitting down and picking his own Transfiguration textbook out of his bag with a huff, "That's awesome that we get to fly, 'cause I want to play Quidditch, but the bad news is we have to take lessons with the _Slytherins_."

"…Is that why you're suddenly doing your homework early?" Harry finally settled on asking Ron.

"Yep," Ron nodded, "Now that I'm in a rotten mood, it's the perfect time to do homework."

Harry finished her essay and set it aside to let the ink dry. Then she sat back and stared into the fire, setting her mind in order.

Tea with Hagrid had been okay - although the groundskeeper needed to be a little less literal with his rock cakes - and Harry had since pretty much adjusted to every aspect of her new situation that had come up on her. Some of the classes were pretty hard, but some were easier. Some of the professors were boring, and some were interesting. In fact, only and exactly one class and professor shared the common trait of being hard and bad, and were getting harder and growing more intolerable by the session.

And Harry hadn't even been here a month yet. It made her shudder to think the next seven years might be exactly the same…

As far as the student body went, almost everyone seemed to be split between gazing longingly and/or admiringly at Harry when they didn't think she could see them do it, or else they were displaying open hostility. The first-year Slytherin girls were some of the worst of the second category, especially their ringleader, Pansy Parkinson. Pansy had somehow determined Harry's less-fortunate status already and was determinedly flaunting her non-existent stuff. For some reason, whenever Pansy saw Harry, she would latch onto Draco Malfoy like a leech and sneer at Harry, which Harry figured would be more insulting if she liked the blonde boy.

Hermione might go into the second group, Harry thought. The bushy-haired, extra-studious witch seemed to take Harry's mere presence as a personal challenge of intelligence and skill. The fact that Harry was just about as good at practical magic skills as Hermione was, but didn't study even a tenth as much as Hermione to get that good, seemed to be a real sore point for Harry's would-be rival.

Friends would be nice. Harry hadn't had any, before Hogwarts. Dudley's preventive influence had kept people from trying to make friends with her, and since she was some kind of superhero for the wizarding community, Harry had to careful that these new people weren't just trying to be nice because they wanted something from her. Ron was okay, but he did have a slight tendency to show off how 'the great Harley Potter' liked to talk to _him_ more than other people.

The last time Ron had gotten too full of himself over her, Fred and George had happily deflated their brother. Well, it was originally just a regular prank, but the twins were nice enough to rearrange their setup. They even warned Harry ahead of time, very wonderful when three dozen misplaced dungbombs went off in the middle of breakfast, splattering food and unmentionable material everywhere. So, except for occasional slips, Ron was fine.

Harry sighed to herself, too softly for anyone else to hear, before picking her Transfiguration essay and re-reading it. As she scanned the parchment, Harry rubbed her forehead in a vain attempt to make the soreness between her eyes go away. It had started up right after school had started, but Harry just figured it was stress-induced and since it was barely anything she ignored it.

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Next week showed up a little too soon for Harry's liking. It wasn't until she was following Ron and the others outside, to where rows of brooms were lying on the ground, that Harry suddenly remembered that her experience with brooms involved very little use outside of cleaning.

That, and then there was the itty-bitty matter of Harry's distinct lack of enjoyment of being high off the ground - thank you very **much**, 'Rooftop Incident'.

Once, when Harry was much younger, Dudley and his gang had been Harry-Hunting…Harry, naturally, had been running like crazy to get away from them. They had cornered her between two buildings and a tall fence. Harry had tried to get over the fence, but her little attempt at jumping somehow transported her to the roof of the building behind the fence instead. So, Harry had escaped Dudley's reach…but the building had been this ancient and abandoned five-story-high warehouse on the farthest edge of the neighborhood…it had been in the paper afterwards: '_Local girl plays at mountaineer, is rescued by brave cousin_.'

Once things had gone back to normal and the newspaper people had lost interest in the story, Vernon and Petunia had punished Harry severely for the Incident, but it had been a little late and unneeded - the stark terror little Harry had felt, being that high off the ground for the first time in her life, had been the worst punishment imaginable. It had been so rickety and creaky and the wind had been trying to knock her off the building and she couldn't let herself move an **inch** because the roof would break and she'd fall and smash all her bones against the concrete and slice her head open on the jagged metal and die because she didn't deserve a doctor - 

"Um, are you all right?" Neville's timid voice interrupted Harry's thoughts as they waited for the Slytherins to get outside.

"…I'll be okay," Harry replied.

She eyed Neville's own paled complexion and added, "What about you?"

Neville blushed

"I've never flown before, is all. Gran didn't think it was a good idea to let me use a broom…"

Knowing how clumsy Neville was, Harry didn't blame his Gran one bit. Any other chance for conversation was interrupted as the Slytherins approached the brooms. Glares of mutual loathing were passed between the two houses as the Flying instructor, Madam Hooch, began walking up and down the lines of brooms.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" Madam Hooch barked, "Everyone stand by a broomstick - hurry up!"

Harry looked down and eyed the broom skeptically. It was old and the twigs were aimed every which-way…it would be impossible to sweep with this broom, so how could it really fly, with or without a passenger?

"Hold your right hand over your broom," Madam Hooch was saying now, "And say 'Up!'"

"Up!" said Harry and everyone else.

Harry's broom shot into her hand hard enough to leave her palm stinging, but no one else seemed to be having as easy a time. Only a few other people's brooms reached their hands on the first try. Ron's broom only tipped upwards until it was standing upright, Hermione's broom rolled over a little but stayed on the ground, and Neville's broom happily ignored him completely.

"Go on, say it with feeling!" Madam Hooch declared, "Up!"

Eventually, everyone else's brooms were quietly hovering beside them. Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount the broom and the proper grip to use, correcting up and down the line until things were all set.

"Now, when I blow my whistle," Madam Hooch said, "You will kick off the ground hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two -"

Neville 'eeped' in panic and pushed off the ground hard, right before the whistle was supposed to be blown. His eeping got worse when his broom eagerly shot up and away with its hapless rider.

"Longbottom! Get back down here!" Madam Hooch yelled, waving at the soaring figure, "Come on boy, lean into your turn, _lean into your turn!_"

Trying to turn his broom around so the teacher could rescue him, Neville leaned too far to the side. Instead of turning, the broom began spinning around and around, tossing the poor boy off with ease…thirty feet above the ground. He landed with a nasty crack, while the broom, its mission apparently accomplished, stopped spinning and began drifting away, headed in the general direction of the forest.

Madam Hooch ordered everyone else off and away from their brooms and rushed over to help Neville up. She looked pale at the sudden accident, but she wasn't half as pale as poor Neville.

"Thought so, broken wrist," Harry heard her mutter, "All right, you'll be fine boy, up you get."

Turning to the rest of the class, Madam Hooch said, "You will all stay _on_ the ground and _off_ of those brooms while I take Mr. Longbottom up to the Hospital Wing. And if I see a _single_ person off the ground, that person will be _removed_ from this school before you can say '_Quidditch_'! All right, dear, come on…"

…


	16. Flying Lesson Part Two

Only one thing to say before this chapter starts: Everybody remember the Prophecy? Specifically, '**_Power the Dark Lord knows not_**'?

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Good. Let's get on with it then.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: This is MY fic!

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…

The second Madam Hooch had lead her charge out of earshot, chattering and laughter broke out amongst the Slytherins. Harry couldn't see from where she was standing, but she thought she recognized Draco Malfoy's voice.

Whoever it was, they said, "And did you see his face? That fat lump should've landed on it, would have made him look better."

"Shut up, Malfoy," Parvati said - oh, so it had been Malfoy.

"Wow, Patil, I didn't know you liked fat and ugly crybabies," Pansy piped up, making the Slytherins laugh some more.

Before anyone could say anything else on the matter, the Slytherin girl, suddenly seeing something in the grass, darted over and picked it up. It was a little glass ball with smoke inside.

"Look! Look at this! Longbottom's so dumb he needs a _Remembrall!_" Pansy cried in vicious delight, "He probably needs it so he doesn't forget that he's an IDIOT!"

The Slytherins shrieked with renewed laughter. Harry, though, had had it with Pansy's attitude. But she still managed to surprise herself by stepping forward and snapping, "Drop it, Parkinson!"

Everything went very quiet. And even if she didn't like Harry, Pansy was still one of those people who had been raised thinking Girl-Who-Lived was this amazingly incredible person, and for a moment it looked like she was actually going to back down.

Then Pansy laughed, and skipped right over to stand next to Malfoy.

"Draco, can you go put this somewhere for me? Please?"

"Parkinson!" Harry snapped.

Pansy made a point of deliberately sneering at Harry, before adding, "Leave this somewhere interesting for Longbottom to find - like in the forest!"

Apparently caught up in the thrill of Longbottom-mockery, Malfoy didn't even hesitate. He took the Remembrall from Pansy, went over to his broom, mounted it, and took off into the air like a shot. And he was clearly experienced, soaring as gracefully as a bird.

Harry didn't care. She was **angry** now, drawing on years and years of pent-up frustration over this very same form of torment, and Harry was damned if she was going to stand by and let it happen to someone else, or at least to someone else who didn't deserve it.

"Don't do it!" Hermione cried as Harry went for her own broom, "Madam Hooch said not to move - you'll get us all in trouble!"

Harry was already in the air when Hermione got to 'trouble', catching up to Malfoy easily and pulling in front of him to stop him.

"Give that back now," Harry snapped at the blonde boy.

Flushing suddenly, his face now a deep red, Malfoy glanced nervously at the watching crowd below, torn between the need to prove himself in front of his housemates and his weird crush on Harry.

During this pause, Harry suddenly remembered that she didn't _like_ heights.

She almost lost her grip then and there, but held on to the broom for dear life and shot Malfoy an angry look. It was HIS fault she'd come up here, after all!

Shaking his head with frustration, Malfoy turned around and flew back towards the castle, heading higher to get to the roof of one of the towers. Apparently, he was going to leave Neville's Remembrall up there instead.

'Oh no! I can barely stand being up this high!' Harry groaned mentally.

…Or could she?

In the back of her mind, Harry suddenly noticed that despite how much she felt like throwing up, **something** was thinking about how oh so very 'wonderful' it was to be airborne right now. It only got weirder when she tried to figure out what could have put such a ridiculous thought in her head and discovered that…well…

…If Harry didn't know any better, she could have sworn that the **broom** was the one with the happy feeling.

Weird, strange, AND improbable - not to mention it made sense. Why wouldn't a magic broom enjoy doing its job? All it knew was how to fly, so as long as it was flying right, what was there to be unhappy about? Of course, being able to tell if a broom was happy was disturbing, but then again, Harry was quite used to being considered an unnatural freak.

Harry turned the broom towards Malfoy. Her little discovery had only taken a few seconds, and he wasn't even halfway to the tower he was aiming for. And Malfoy wouldn't get there, either - Harry focused on chasing him, rocked forward on her broom, and shot towards Malfoy like a cannonball, while the Gryffindors below cheered.

Heights were still bad - Harry made a point of keeping her eyes far away from the ground at all times - but the broom knew what it was doing and liked to fly, and Harry had to admit that it wasn't SO bad this way.

Actually, this was almost **fun!**

She caught up to Malfoy easily, doing a neat turn to park herself directly in his way, and said, "Give that back!"

Turning a brighter red than she'd seen anyone go before - if it was nighttime, would he glow in the dark? - Malfoy snapped, "Fine! If you want it, catch it!" before tossing the Remembrall away.

As the angry Slytherin boy streaked down to the ground, Harry kept her eye on the ball. It went up a little, then slowly arched down, heading straight for the ground - suddenly, without even thinking about it, Harry whipped her broom around and dove for it, going faster and faster until she'd caught up.

A foot off the ground, Harry reached out and snatched up Neville's Remembrall with one hand - the other was still locked in a death-grip on the broom handle - and pulled her broom around so that it slowed to a skidding and sliding stop. Once it did, Harry let herself finally fall off, half a foot off the ground, and tried to remember to breathe before she passed out.

'I can't believe I DID that!' Harry exclaimed mentally, unable to hear outside noises over the thunder of blood in her ears, 'That was so STUPID! I know I got it back, but I'm NEVER doing that again!'

Oh well. Since no teachers saw her up on the broom, at least she wasn't going to be expelled for it, like Madam Hooch had threatened.

"**HARLEQUIN POTTER!**"

Uh-oh.

As Harry shakily climbed to her feet - assisted by Ron and Lavender, who were standing closest - she saw that Professor McGonagall was running over, apparently having seen everything. 

'Dursleys, here I come,' Harry sighed as the professor stormed over, glasses flashing with shock and fury.

"NEVER - in all my years -"

McGonagall was panting for breath, but she didn't let that stop her from delivering her diatribe -

"- how DARE you - broken your neck -!"

"Professor, its not her fault -"

"Be quiet, Ms. Brown -"

"But Malfoy -!"

"That's ENOUGH, Mr. Weasley," McGonagall had her breath back now, "Ms. Potter, follow me, now."

Still clinging to both broom and Remembrall, Harry stumbled after the Transfiguration Professor. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Pansy covering her face with her hands and trying not to burst into her inevitable shrieks of laughter until the professor had gone.

McGonagall led Harry through the corridors of Hogwarts. Harry wasn't really paying strict attention to where they were going exactly - she was wondering if they'd let her visit Neville before they kicked her out, so she could give him back his Remembrall - and was very surprised when the professor came to a halt at the Charms classroom.

Sticking her head through the door, McGonagall said, "Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, may I borrow Wood for a moment?"

Wood? What was that supposed to be?

Wood turned out to be a person - a fifth-year Gryffindor boy who looked confused as to why he was being summoned, not to mention why Harley Potter was standing out there in the hallway. Without explaining anything, McGonagall continued down the hallway, leaving Harry and Wood to hoof it behind.

'Is this 'Kick out all the bad students day' or what?' Harry thought to herself as McGonagall ushered them into an empty classroom, closing the door behind them.

"Potter, this is Oliver Wood," McGonagall finally said, indicating the boy, "Wood - I've found you a Seeker."

Wood's puzzled expression morphed straight into delight.

"Are you serious, Professor?"

"Absolutely," McGonagall replied crisply, "She's a natural - I've never seen anything like it. Was it your first time on a broom, Potter?"

Harry slowly nodded. All right, so maybe she _wasn't_ getting expelled, but this conversation was starting to lean in a very uncomfortable direction…

"She caught that thing in her hand after a fifty-foot dive," McGonagall was telling Wood now, "Not a scratch on her. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it."

Wood now looked like all his wildest hopes and dreams had all come true at once. 

"Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?" he asked excitedly.

"Wood's captain of the Gryffindor team," McGonagall finally explained to Harry. 

Not waiting for any answer, Wood was already walking a little circle around Harry, sizing her up.

"Hmm…light, speedy - we'll just have to get her a decent broom, Professor - probably a Nimbus or a Cleansweep, I'd say."

"I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend that first-year rule," McGonagall said, "Heaven knows we need a better team this year. Flattened in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn't look Severus Snape in the face for weeks…"

McGonagall paused to peer at Harry sternly over her glasses.

"I want to hear you're working hard, Ms. Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you."

The punishment McGonagall had in mind would probably be better than Harry suddenly being drafted into the Gryffindor house Quidditch team, but what could she say at this point? Seeing no escape, Harry quietly answered, "Yes ma'am," and hoped things wouldn't go TOO badly.

…


	17. Quidditch

(**_I fixed the thing about the Nimbus! You all can stop bugging me now, okay!_**)

Disclaimer: I do NOT own the ORIGINAL Harry Potter

Claimer: I DO own THIS Harry Potter

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…

Considering that McGonagall and Wood had both wanted Harry's new place on the Quidditch team kept a secret from everybody else, Harry was almost surprised when Fred and George pulled her aside that evening to congratulate her. Laughing at how 'it wasn't fair for old chums to keep secrets from each other anyway', the twins explained that they were on the team too, as the Beaters.

"If Oliver really wants to keep this under his hat, he needs to stop floating around," George said, "He's been doing that all afternoon, you know."

"Just wait a few more days and he'll drift away over the lake," Fred added.

Even so, the rest of the school hadn't picked up on this yet. Pansy and her cronies made a big show of surprise when Harry came to dinner, not expelled at all, while Hermione was fuming over how absolutely _no one_ seemed to have gotten punished for the misuse of brooms. For his part, Ron challenged Malfoy to a Wizard's Duel, with Neville tagging along as his second. 

Harry thought it was stupid - it wasn't like any of them knew enough magic to hurt each other - but she kept her thoughts to herself and went to bed early, exhausted from the various stresses of the day.

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The next morning at breakfast, Ron gleefully informed her of his, Neville's, and for some reason Hermione's attempt at not getting caught out of bed in the dead of night by Filch, which had lead to their discovery of why the third-floor corridor was off-limits.

"Honestly," Ron said around a mouthful of fruit and bacon, "Who keeps a three-headed monster like that in a school? We're just students and it still tried to eat us!"

"But it didn't," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah…for a three-headed monster, its not all that smart," Ron replied, "Of course, then that Granger went on and on about how the thing was standing on some trap door and guarding it. Pretty big load of rubbish if you ask me."

Harry let the subject drop, but she was curious now. Clearly there must be something very important being secretly guarded at Hogwarts. Hagrid himself had said that Hogwarts was even safer than Gringotts, which had those doors that sucked you inside and never let you go…but what could it be? Probably something from a far-away land that almost nobody had ever heard of.

Instead of spending the next week thinking in circles on the subject, Harry concentrated on her schoolwork. It wasn't easy, either, with Pansy and Hermione doing their best to be irritating, or with Ron's sudden new burst of ego…even the way Malfoy refused to acknowledge he had ever heard of a girl named Harley Potter was starting to grind Harry's nerves.

Then IT came.

Harry had already gotten her 'normal' morning mail - only two fruit baskets today - when six owls, lugging a long, thin package between them, flapped slowly into the Great Hall. Naturally, this caught everyone's attention, making Harry twice as mortified to have the package dropped on the table directly in front of her.

One last owl, fluttering behind the first six, left a letter on top of the thin package, and to buy some time Harry opened the letter first. It was a good thing she did, too.

'_DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE_,' it began, in McGonagall's handwriting.

'_It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don't want everybody knowing you've got a broomstick or they'll all want one. Oliver Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session_.'

Ron was sitting next to her, as usual, and as soon as his mouth wasn't full the red-head asked to see what the letter was. Harry was saved from having to risk dealing with her almost-friend by his brothers, who had perfect timing as usual.

"Harry old bean, fancy meeting you here!" Fred grinned.

"Oh yeah, and he's just the man we've been looking for, isn't he?" George added.

"Indeed. C'mon, Harry, let's help you with this stuff, then we can have us a little chat," Fred continued, picking the wrapped broomstick up and heading back for the door as George tugged Harry along behind him.

"What? Wait, what chat? What's going on?" Ron demanded.

"Can't tell you, Ronald, that's family business that is," Fred said.

Ignoring Ron's protest of 'But we ARE family!', the twins quickly escorted Harry a few corridors away.

"'Bout time you got yourself a broomstick," Fred laughed, "We were wondering if you were going to have to play while flapping your arms!"

"Do you know which model you've got?" George asked.

Harry nodded, still holding the letter that she had thankfully NOT left behind at the breakfast table. The twins glanced over it once and whistled with obvious appreciation.

"_Very_ glad to have you on the team, mate," they grinned, cheerfully shaking Harry's hands before heading back to the Great Hall.

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Not very hungry anyway, Harry took the broomstick back to her dormitory. Because everyone else was still at breakfast, she got to unwrap the broom without anyone bothering her. And this broom was very nice to look at - sleek and shiny, with every twig honed to such a degree that it would be utterly shameful to use this for sweeping.

Taking advantage of her isolation, Harry reluctantly placed the broom in the middle of the floor, held her hand over it, and said "Up!" 

It leapt up, right into Harry's hand, and she waited to see if that strangeness that had happened last time would happen again.

There was nothing for a moment…then Harry got the distinct impression that the broom was starting to get annoyed. Apparently, it was very impatiently waiting for her to actually get on so they could fly. Compared to the older and more relaxed school broom, THIS broom was a slick, high-strung racer.

All this meant, though, was that that weirdness from last time HADN'T been a fluke after all…Harry sighed, hid the broom inside her trunk, and went back down for class. Somehow, she got through the whole day without having to deal with Ron once - she had known him long enough now that she knew he wouldn't take very kindly to being kept in the dark about this - and Harry was certain she could feel his eyes on the back of her head when she took her new broom down to the field that evening.

The Quidditch field was very odd - at each end of the field were three golden hoops mounted on poles, set high above the ground. The stands were on stilts, high above the ground as well…Harry thought she might almost throw up then and there. Wood wasn't there right at seven, which did nothing to calm Harry's nerves, and when he did show up he was lugging a crate.

"Right," Wood said, "For tonight, we'll just go over the rules. Then you'll be joining team practice three times a week."

"Okay…" Harry said.

"Right," Wood said again, "Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand, even if its not that easy to play. There are seven players on each team. Three of them are called Chasers."

"Three Chasers," Harry murmured to herself as Wood reached down and picked a red ball out of the crate.

"Now, this ball is called the Quaffle. In Quidditch, the Chasers have to take this ball and put it through one of those goal hoops," Wood pointed to the golden hoops as he spoke, "While another player, the Keeper - that's my position - tries to stop them. Ten points every time the Quaffle gets through. With me so far?"

"I think so," Harry said, "Three Chasers and one Keeper play with the Quaffle."

"That's right," Wood said, reaching back into the crate, "Then there's these over here. Better take this. And stand back."

Harry blinked at the little club Wood was holding out, and dubiously took it. Arming himself with another one, Wood reached for one of the two black balls that were strapped to the side of the crate. Harry didn't need to see how both of them were struggling against their restraints to know that they were dangerous.

When Wood let one loose, it shot straight up, then veered off to the side and out of immediate sight at an angle. Without thinking about it, Harry whirled around and smacked the little cannonball away just as it tried to slam into her from behind.

It veered sharply, coming back for Wood, who jumped at it and wrestled it down to the ground. After managing to get it back into the crate, Wood said, "And that was one of the Bludgers, Harley. They go around the field and try to knock the players off their brooms during the game, and it's the job of the Beaters - ours are the Weasley twins - to defend the rest of the team with those clubs. Following me?"

"Three Chasers and a Keeper play with the Quaffle. Two Beaters, and they block the Bludgers," Harry recited obediently.

"Good," Wood said, "And don't worry too much about them - the worse the Bludgers at Hogwarts have ever down is break a few jaws. The twins are more than a match for them, anyway - like a pair of human Bludgers, they are."

Wood paused to rub his hands together in anticipation before continuing, "Then there's the last member of the team. The Seeker."

"That's me," Harry said.

"That's right," Wood said, "And there's only one thing I want you to be concerned about. This."

Gently, Wood removed another ball from the crate. Unlike the Bludgers and Quaffle, it was very small, about the size of a walnut. It was golden in color, and sported a pair of silver wings that were beating slowly as it sat in Wood's open hand.

"This is called the Golden Snitch," Wood said, "This is the most important ball of the game. It's the Seeker's job to find it and catch it, before the other team's Seeker does. Not an easy task - it's brilliantly fast - and the Seeker to get it earns their team an extra one hundred and fifty points. You'll have to dodge the Chasers, Beaters, and Bludgers to get it, and Quidditch games only end when the Snitch is caught. I think the record for one game is three months or so, and they had to keep sending out substitutes so the players could get some sleep…but don't worry, that's never happened at Hogwarts.

"So, any questions?"

Wood was eyeing her expectantly, but Harry had the gist of things. But knowing HOW to do it and being ABLE to do were two completely different things - and she'd be damned if she was going to be stuck up on a broom for three months straight.

"We're not going to practice with the Snitch yet," Wood said, placing the Snitch back inside the crate, "Let's see how you fly, get you started with something a bit easier…"

Two dizzying laps around the Quidditch stadium later, Wood was throwing out golf balls for Harry to chase and catch. Keeping her distress to herself with a will of iron, Harry caught them all easily. It must have worked, because Wood only looked delighted with his new Seeker when it got too dark to practice and they had to come down.

"The Quidditch Cup'll have our names on it this year," the fifth-year beamed as he and Harry made their way back up to the castle, "I wouldn't be surprised if you turn out better than Charlie Weasley, and he could have played for England if he hadn't gone off chasing dragons."

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Unsurprisingly, Ron was waiting to intercept Harry as soon as Wood went to put the Quidditch equipment back from wherever he had gotten it.

"Why didn't you tell me you were on the team?" Ron asked her, right off the bat.

"It's supposed to be a secret, Ron," Harry replied.

"Fred and George know," he protested. 

"They're on the team," Harry pointed out, but Ron had already moved on to, "And First Years NEVER get on the team. We're not even allowed brooms - where did you get one, anyway?"

"Professor McGonagall got it for me," Harry sighed, "This was all her idea, and it was either this or being expelled, Ron. Look, I'll let you borrow this broom if you want, Ron, I just want to get to bed now."

"I guess…is that a _Nimbus Two-Thousand?_" Ron gasped, "Wow, Harry, you're so _lucky!_"

Apparently placated by the idea that he could fly on a flashy new broom, Ron eagerly lead the way back to the Gryffindor common room, rattling off the statistics of various other brooms and comparing them to the Nimbus. Harry kept her thoughts to herself and let him talk.

…


	18. Halloween

I may have said it before, and whether or not I have, I'm saying it here, now, and possibly again: **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM DOES NOT CONTAIN THE WORD** **'STUPID'**.

Whether or not you start with 'no offense', calling someone stupid IS offensive. The english language has other words, such as '_I don't think you've thought this through very well_,' or, '_I don't understand why you chose to do this_', but calling something someone has worked hard on '_absolutely and utterly stupid_' - ESPECIALLY in a VERY poorly written review - well, as you can see, I don't appriciate that, and neither do other writers. What I write is my choice and if you didn't like what you read, hey, I didn't force you to do it.

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Phew. Just had to get that off my chest.

On a more positive note, Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: I own this fic and my personal stuff within it

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Classes, homework, and Quidditch practice neatly chewed through two full months of school. It certainly helped that in most of their classes, the teachers had moved them past mere theory and into actual practical skills.

Well, Potions was as intolerable as ever, but the Snape Situation was something Harry would let settle on its own time. If only she could figure out why he seemed to hate her so much, Harry was sure she could find a way to hide herself in the concealing folds of the student body and be just an ordinary person.

Whatever one of THOSE was, anyway.

On the morning of Halloween, the whole school woke up to the pervading smell of baking pumpkin. Something Harry found much more interesting, though, was that in Charms, Flitwick was finally going to let them make objects fly. The professor had already wowed the class by making Neville's toad Trevor soar around the classroom like an ugly wingless bird, and now he split them into pairs with the simple task of getting a single feather into the air.

Neville had been eyeing Harry with a rather piteous expression, but thankfully Flitwick wasn't factoring that into his partner assignments and Harry was paired up with Lavender Brown instead. The Charms Professor didn't seem to take mutual dislike into account either, which was why Ron was partnered with Hermione, neither of whom looked at all pleased by the situation.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing - the 'swish and flick', remember. And of course, you must say the magic words properly - never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself with a water buffalo standing on his chest!"

Lavender swished and flicked a couple of times, then got bored when nothing immediately happened and started chatting up Parvati, who was partnered with Seamus the next table over. Seamus was determinedly swishing and flicking away, but when that didn't work he jabbed the feather sharply with his wand.

As most things did around Seamus, it exploded, making Parvati and Lavender shriek. Once the smoke cleared, Lavender took hers and Harry's feather and handed it over Parvati without asking, and they started working together, leaving Harry to get a new feather from the professor if she wanted to get through this lesson.

Ron's luck was only better than Seamus' in that his feather hadn't blown itself to smithereens. Waving his wand in a fashion that would put an eye out, Ron nearly bellowed, "_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

"Stop that, before you take someone's head off!" Hermione snapped, grabbing Ron's arm, "Now listen. You're doing it wrong. It's Win-_gar_-dium Levi-_o_-sa, concentrate on the long 'gar', put emphasis on the 'o', and use a light wrist motion!"

"Then why don't you do it, you're so clever," Ron grumbled, shoving the feather towards Hermione.

Hermione rolled up her sleeves, cleared her throat, and with a nice swish-and-flick motion, correctly incanted, "_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

The feather rose slowly, straight into the air, until it was hovering exactly four feet over the desk. This caught the rest of the class's attention immediately, and Flitwick applauded loudly.

"Well done!" the professor cried, "Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"

Needless to say, Ron was _not_ in a very charitably mood after class ended. He, Dean, and Seamus were walking to their next class together - the corridor was crowded enough that Harry was behind and off to the side for once - and the red-head was doing a very rude reenactment of Hermione Granger.

"'And it's _Levi-O-sa_'," Ron said, "'Put _emphasis_ on it!' Honestly, its no wonder no one can stand her, she's a complete nightmare!"

Someone rushed past the group from behind, bumping Ron hard. Her bushy hair was hiding it pretty well, but it was still easy enough to see that Hermione was crying.

"I think she heard you," Dean said after another moment.

Ron looked only slightly unnerved.

"So?" he said. "She must have noticed by now that she's got no friends."

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Harry made a point of sitting across the classroom from Ron during Transfiguration class. Whether the red-head noticed or not, Harry was seriously reevaluating him as companion material. She had minimal experience when it came to human interaction, of course, but Harry had quite honestly picked up a _severe_ dislike of people who made fun of other people for having no friends.

Hermione didn't come to class. When they went back to the common room afterwards, she wasn't in Gryffindor tower either. Everyone was heading down to the Great Hall for the Halloween Feast when Parvati came and gravely informed Lavender and Harry, as fellow first-year Gryffindor girls, that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone.

Instead of heading down the Great Hall with the others, Harry made an abrupt turn and walked determinedly to the bathroom. It was only when she was pushing the door open that she realized she didn't even know what she was going to do, only that she was going to do something.

Hiccups and sniffles pinpointed Hermione's location, inside the farthest stall from the door. Gingerly, Harry knocked on the stall door.

She was greeted with a very snuffly "I told you to go away!"

"I'm not Parvati," Harry ventured, assuming that was who had been most recently told off, "Can I open the door?"

"No," Hermione's voice said, "Go away, Potter."

"I think I'll just stay right here," Harry said, taking a seat by the door.

"Actually, its really no use staying here," a new voice echoed from behind another door, "She's just going cry and snivel for a while. You ought to go down to the feast."

Harry turned her head and saw a ghostly girl sticking her head and shoulders through a stall door. Harry wasn't too concerned, though - even she had heard about the ghost of Moaning Myrtle by now.

"I don't want to go to the feast," Harry told Myrtle bluntly, "Don't interrupt a private conversation, Myrtle." 

"WELL!" Myrtle huffed, "What am I supposed to do, then, with your nasty voices echoing down the u-bend? Go somewhere else? Oh yes, lets flush Myrtle down the drain and into the lake, everyone loves to do that! Hmph! I know when I'm not wanted!"

With that, Myrtle vanished. The overdone '_splash_' that followed showed that Myrtle had headed back into the plumbing that she haunted, and Harry turned back to Hermione's stall - only to find that the door was open and the bushy-haired girl was eyeing her suspiciously.

"Why do you care, anyway?" Hermione challenged, "Everybody likes you. Think you'll get points for being nice to the less fortunate people, Potter?" 

"And how many friends do I have, do you think?" Harry replied.

Hermione frowned, doing the math in her head. The closest anyone got to that status was Ron, but he would be hanging around playing chess and exploding snap with his dorm-mates as often or more often as he did anything with Harry.

"Guess nobody's good enough for you, huh," Hermione sniffed.

"Whatever you say," Harry shrugged.

There was a long pause after this. Finally, Harry decided that coming here was a bad idea after all, and got to her feet.

"If you want, you can have my notes from Transfiguration today," Harry said, turning to where Hermione was still watching her.

"Why?"

Harry blinked.

"Well, how else are you going to get them? Lavender's is filled with doodles of fairies and unicorns and all the 'i's are dotted with hearts on Parvati's…"

"…You're actually serious," Hermione sounded surprised, "I would have thought you'd like me falling behind, so that you'd be the smartest person in our year as well as the most famous."

Harry felt a scowl appear on her face. It felt weird, so she focused on making it a neutral expression.

Once that was in place, Harry said, speaking very carefully, "What am I supposed to say to that? Should it be '_Oh yes, I LOVE humiliating people for their natural abilities, its what my aunt and uncle did to me after all_', or maybe '_Yes, I DO enjoy the fact that people worship me for the death of the only people who ever loved me_.' Which do you want?"

And to her utter shame, Harry found herself crying anyway. Surprisingly, sympathy tears were welling in Hermione's eyes…for the next ten minutes, it was a complete girl moment.

Afterwards, both girls washed their faces in the sink. Hermione hesitantly spoke, saying, "Um…if you don't mind…can I look at your notes? Unless you wanted to go to the feast first…"

"I wasn't hungry to begin with," Harry answered, as they headed for the door…only to be stopped in their tracks by the most **atrocious** stench.

…


	19. T is for Troll

Been a week and then some since the last update, huh?

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Well, I hope your Thanksgivings were good, with good friends, decent pie, and a turkey that isn't a cross between concrete and sawdust - because that's what I got!

Heh heh...yeah.

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not owned here

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"Did someone set off thirty dungbombs again?" Hermione wondered aloud, disapproval written into all her features, "Honestly, even if it is Halloween…"

"I think those smelled better," Harry offered, waving a hand in front of her face to try and make the smell go away.

Instead of going away, the smell only seemed to get worse. To make matters even more complicated, now both girls could hear heavy, shuffling footsteps coming down the corridor. As if something very, VERY big was slowly heading their way.

"…Maybe we should go back to the dormitory now?" Harry suggested, covering her mouth and nose with both hands now.

Getting the same inkling of approaching danger, Hermione nodded and turned to lead the way back to Gryffindor tower…just as a huge, gray monster came around that very bend. It was **HUGE**, filling up the corridor through sheer bulk alone, and it was dragging an equally intimidating wooden club along behind it.

"What's a _troll_ doing inside the school?" Hermione gasped, nearly squeaking in fear, while she and Harry slowly backed away from the approaching monster.

Spotting them, the troll hesitated, apparently judging the distance between itself and the two Gryffindor girls. Then, in a surprising moment of agility, it threw its club right at them. Hermione screamed, but Harry, who was more inured to oversized attackers, somehow managed to drag her away from the club's point of impact and into the nearest hiding place - the girls' bathroom.

The crash of the club echoed up and down the corridor. As the troll came closer, going for a closer look at the results of its throw, Harry and Hermione bolted into a stall and crouched low to the floor, keeping absolutely silent in the hope that the troll would miss them.

It hesitated, peering around…then noticed the open girls' bathroom. Wagging its ears, it made up its mind and walked through the door. Hefting its club, the troll decided to give it an experimental swing. The long arc of that swing demolished a sink and turned the first three stalls into toothpicks. Harry and Hermione had been inside the second one, but thankfully, they had been below the club's path and weren't hurt.

It was too much for Hermione. She screamed again, alerting the troll to their presence.

Grunting, the troll raised its club, clearly planning to turn the two of them into pancakes. Alternating between shoving and pulling Hermione out of the way, Harry got them both out of harm's way in the nick of time…at which point Hermione's legs gave out completely. 

"Come on, move, _move!_" Harry yelled, but Hermione was paralyzed with terror.

The troll was closing in…feeling unexpectedly lightheaded, Harry bolted for the shattered remnants of the sink, grabbed the tap, and flung it at the troll's as hard as she could.

"Over here, Stinko!" Harry yelled, hoping to get the troll away from Hermione before it smashed her into paste.

Whether or not the troll even noticed the tap, it did hear Harry yelling. Stupidly, it stopped advancing on Hermione - who was only a few feet away and looked about to faint, from either her terror or possibly the absolutely **horrific** stench - turned to the direction Harry's voice was coming from, and began walking towards Harry instead.

And now what was she going to do? Harry backed away until she hit the wall, wracking her brains for something, anything that might stop a troll. If only Hermione hadn't frozen up!

At the very last second, halfway to panic, Harry pulled out her wand and did the first spell that popped into her head.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_" Harry incanted.

Had she thought about what she was about to do, Harry might have thought to aim for the troll's club, but in her panic Harry cast the Levitation spell on the troll itself. Slowly, its feet left the ground. Confused, the troll kicked and grunted, trying to fight whatever force that was lifting it into the air. And it was so **heavy**…the troll stopped rising as Harry strained against the pressure of its sheer bulk.

A second or two later, Harry lost it completely. But, thanks to its struggles, the troll had rotated in midair, until it was upside-down. So, when it plummeted all four or so feet to the ground, it landed on its head. The fall wasn't so much the problem as being crushed by its own immensity, and after its earth-shaking landing, the troll didn't get back up again.

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Harry sank to the floor, wheezing in exhaustion. She was NEVER going to complain about doing spells on _little_ things like buttons and feathers for as long as she lived!

"…Um…I think…I think you knocked it unconscious…" Hermione said, rising to her feet.

The sounds of slamming doors and running footsteps heralded the arrival of a slightly-too-late rescue party. McGonagall, followed by Snape and with Quirrell trailing along behind the two of them, burst into the bathroom, and stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the knocked-out troll. As soon as he caught sight of it, Quirrell went pasty-white and gave out a little choked whimper. Snape made a noise of disgust at his fellow teacher's cowardice and started investigating the fallen monster himself.

McGonagall, however, was alternating her sternest expression between Hermione and Harry. Even when the Transfiguration Professor had hauled her off after the flying lesson, Harry had never seen the woman so angry.

"What on earth were you thinking?" McGonagall said at last, pure fury in her voice, "You are lucky you weren't both killed! Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

'And how were we supposed to hear that a troll was loose in the school from the bathroom?' Harry mentally protested, still working on getting her breathing back under control.

Ignoring Snape's sharp look - why did he _always_ think it was her fault? - Harry was about to use a slightly more respectful version of the truth when Hermione came to the rescue.

"Please, Professor McGonagall - it's my fault."

"Miss Granger!" McGonagall gasped.

"I went after the troll. I - I thought I could handle it, because I've read all about them."

Harry could have laughed - if Hermione hadn't panicked, she might very well have dealt with the troll easily, even by herself.

"If Harley hadn't come, I'd be dead right now," Hermione added, "She was able to knock it out, and we didn't have any time to call for help until now. Professor."

McGonagall blinked in consternation.

"In that case…" the Transfiguration teacher said, "You foolish girl, how could you even think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

Hermione hung her head as McGonagall added, "Five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this foolhardy behavior. I'm very disappointed in you."

Turning to Harry - she was finally able to get back to her feet at this point - McGonagall said, "As for you, Miss Potter…for your part in trying to avert this, I shall award Gryffindor five points. You were both very lucky - not many first years could take on a fully grown troll and survive - but rest assured, Professor Dumbledore will hear of this.

"Now, if neither of you is hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the Halloween Feast in their common rooms."

Harry and Hermione hurried out of the bathroom and headed for the tower. A few floors later - when, finally, the stink of troll FINALLY faded - Hermione surprised Harry by stopping.

"Um…thank you for saving my life, Harley," Hermione said, once Harry had paused, "And I'm sorry I wasn't very nice to you before."

"And I'm sorry for not being able to do something about Ron," Harry replied. 

"Its okay, I'm used to it," Hermione sighed.

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There was a pregnant pause.

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"…So…" Hermione started, before trailing off.

"…You wanted to see my Transfiguration notes?" Harry mentioned.

"If you're really sure you want to share them," Hermione answered, as the two of them started walking again.

"I am sure," Harry said, "Um…and…if its not too much trouble…" 

"Hmm?"

"…Would you please…can you call me Harry?"

…


	20. November

So, here it is, the Christmas/Hannukah chapter of the fic!

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I know its early for that, but I doubt I'll update again before New Years...going to visit relatives and all that...so unless a new chapter pops up, see you next year everybody!

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Disclaimer: I do not own the actual Harry Potter

Claimer: I do own this particular Harry Potter

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…

November came in with a blast of frozen air. Every morning, frost covered every surface exposed to the outdoors. Hagrid could be seen regularly defrosting brooms by the shed, so bundled up that he resembled a gigantic furry bear.

But more important than the weather, in Harry's mind, was a truly terrible truth: Quidditch season had finally begun. This very coming Saturday, Harry was going to be in her very first official match - Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. If Gryffindor won, they would be in second place for the championship…something Wood liked to remind the team at least ten times every single practice.

Wood had also done his best to keep Harry's position on the team a secret, but somehow that was all the school could talk about the week before the match. Judging from some of the commentary Fred and George had been tossing around recently, Harry suspected it was probably Ron's fault. He hadn't taken Harry's sudden friendship with Hermione very well.

Harry, on the other hand, felt pretty good about having the other, brilliant girl working with her instead of against her. Although Harry had always managed to find some time to finish her assigned work, despite the interference of both Ron and Quidditch practice, Hermione's dedication to thorough work saved Harry hours and hours in stress and difficulty. 

Hermione, as it turned out, was the only daughter of two completely muggle dentists. They had noticed her desire for learning early on, and she had been halfway to a professional scholarship at a prodigious muggle school when her Hogwarts letter arrived.

"My parents weren't very keen about my being trained as a witch, but magic is so _fascinating_," Hermione mentioned early on, "And the more I read, the more I discover how little the wizarding community actually knows about its own magic. I might become a professional researcher of magic when I graduate Hogwarts."

Lavender and Parvati, for their parts, seemed relieved that the Hermione/Harley feud had ended, but unfortunately neither Hermione nor Harry had very much interest for the more girly activities the other two liked to pursue. It was such a **shame**, Lavender and Parvati would loudly tell each other in the dormitory at night, because Hermione's bushy hair would look simply_ lovely_ with some light taming. And lest one forget Harry - according to the two of them, Harry only had to dress in green or blue, let her hair grow out some more, and she would be the most beautiful first-year in Hogwarts history.

Harry owned nothing in either of those colours, and told herself that frankly didn't care if anyone thought she was beautiful or not. Really, the stares she got now were annoying, anything extra would be too much. And it wasn't like Lavender or Parvati could complain THAT much - Harry's hair liked to grow out faster than Petunia could hack it off, and this year it had almost reached her shoulders. 

So, while Hermione had found the book _Quidditch Through the Ages_ for Harry, to get her nerve up for the first game of the season, it had been Parvati who had provided the tie to keep Harry's hair in a loose ponytail and out of the way during the game.

That morning, Harry hadn't been able to stomach a single bite of food. That wasn't completely odd - her appetite was still light. Then, as the rest of the school headed for the stands at the Quidditch field, Harry followed her teammates down to the lockers. There, they all changed into their Quidditch robes. They were scarlet - Slytherin's were green, Ravenclaw's blue, and Hufflepuff's yellow.

Once everyone was changed, Wood cleared his throat for silence.

"Okay, men," Wood began.

"And women," piped up Angelina, one of the chasers - all three were girls.

"And women," Wood added, "This is it."

"The big one," Fred said.

"The one we've all been waiting for," George continued.

"We were on the team last year," Fred told Harry, winking, "We know Oliver's whole speech by heart." 

"Shut up, you two," Wood frowned, "This is the best team Gryffindor has had in years. We're going to win. I know it. Victory for Gryffindor!"

"Or else!" George cried.

Wood glared at his Beaters some more, then said, "Its time. Good luck, all of you."

Harry followed the rest of the team out onto the pitch, spending the whole three-minute walk focusing on keeping herself from fainting right there, in front of the whole school.

The Slytherin team was already there, standing by their brooms. In between the two teams stood Madam Hooch, the referee for the match.

"Now, I want a clean, fair game," said Madam Hooch, "From all of you."

She seemed to direct this mainly at the Slytherins; they all looked big and dangerous, especially their captain, Marcus Flint.

"Mount your brooms," Madam Hooch said.

Harry climbed up onto her Nimbus - it was eager, far more ready for its first official game than Harry was for hers - and as soon as everyone was on their brooms, Madam Hooch got upon her own and blew a blast on her silver whistle, singling fifteen brooms to shoot up into the air - they were off.

"And the Quaffle is immediately taken by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor - what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive too -"

"JORDAN!" cut in McGonagall.

"Sorry, Professor."

And that, Harry recalled, would be Fred and George's friend Lee Jordan. He was doing the commentary, with McGonagall watching him very closely…not that that would have ever stopped Fred or George for very long…

Wood's plan for the part of the game that involved Harry was very simple: she would stay up above the mess of the regular game play and keep an eye out for the Snitch, unmolested. Harry circled above the stadium, making herself concentrate on her job and NOT how very high up she was…after these weeks, Harry might be willing to admit that heights didn't scare her as much anymore…as long as a capable broom was keeping her afloat, of course.

But there was no time to muse on that. Instead, Harry kept her eyes on the small, moving objects below, hoping the Snitch would emerge sooner rather than later.

Instead, the Quaffle exchanged hands and teams rapidly, with Slytherin almost scoring, then not, then almost again, then Angelina got the Quaffle and scored, and - _BLUDGER!_

Instinctively, Harry pulled her broom back, performing a sharp reverse loop that pulled her out of the path of a stray Bludger. Fred was chasing it, and barely had time to yell, "All right there, Harry?" as he beat the Bludger down towards Marcus Flint.

"Slytherin in possession," Lee Jordan was saying now, "Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, speeding towards the - whoa - was that the Snitch?"

Chaser Pucey dropped the Quaffle, turning to stare at the little golden ball that had just gone over his shoulder. Harry pointed the front of her broom in that direction and dived. The little golden flutter had not gone unnoticed by the Slytherin Seeker, and very shortly he had pulled even with Harry.

But Harry had two distinct advantages: a top-model racing broom being one, and her small, thin personage being the other. Not only was Harry's Nimbus faster on its own, but she didn't weigh a broom down the same way the other Seeker did. She urged the Nimbus to go faster, focusing on the Snitch as it got closer, and closer, and then -

Marcus Flint, unable to bear watching his Seeker getting beaten by a superior player, flew into Harry's way, in an attempt to stop her. Harry barely avoided what would have been a disastrous collision (for herself; Flint was built to take that kind of punishment) by making a brutal ninety-degree turn that send her spinning away, off course and desperately trying not to be sick right over the Gryffindor seats.

The Gryffindors, meanwhile, were all screaming foul, and in the confusion the Snitch disappeared.

"So - " an angry Lee Jordan began, "After that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating - "

"Jordan!" snapped McGonagall.

"I mean, after that open and revolting foul -"

"_Jordan I'm warning you_ -"

"Alright, alright," Jordan huffed, "Flint tries to kill the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone,_ I'm sure_, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinnet, who puts it away, no problem, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."

Regaining control, Harry reluctantly turned her broom upwards to wait for the Snitch again. Ducking down to avoid a sudden incoming Bludger, Harry tried to find a way up that would avoid flying object and people when her broom suddenly jumped underneath her.

Harry white-knuckled grip got even tighter. What had that been?

The broom bucked again, attempting to unseat her. Only - no, it wasn't the broom, Harry could tell. The broom was TRYING to obey Harry's commands, but there was something else attached to the broom now, something that was yanking Harry's broom like a kite on a string.

Now it was dragging them (Harry and the Nimbus) back and forth across the field in a wild zigzag, with the occasional attempt at bucking her off completely. They were still aimed upwards, but no one else seemed to notice their predicament. When they cut in front of a Slytherin Chaser, making them lose control of the Quaffle, it was applauded as excellent maneuvering.

Harry was back above most of the other players when the worst part yet happened. The Nimbus started rolling around, over and over, until Harry lost her seat and was left hanging on for dear life by her hands. It was at this point that everyone else finally noticed what was going on. The crowd gasped, while Fred and George flew up closer and attempted to let Harry climb onto one of their own brooms.

The mysterious controller of the Nimbus wasn't going to allow that; Harry was jerked several feet higher whenever either Weasley got close enough for the move to be done safely. Relenting, Fred and George moved to circle right below Harry, hoping to catch her when she lost her grip completely.

Down in the stand below, Hermione wasn't staring upwards with the rest of the crowd. She was peering into the stands, trying to see who was casting a spell on the broom, and her eyes lighted upon the Potions Professor. No blinking, nonstop chanting - he was jinxing the broom! Hermione headed through the crowd as fast as she could, knowing exactly what to do to put a stop to that!

Back up in the air, Harry was suddenly down to just her right arm, and the vibrations were getting worse. What a way to die: falling to death just because you weren't smart enough to admit you had a fear of heights…

Suddenly, Harry noticed something. Before, she had detected, somehow, that there was something - a spell - on her broom. But all of a sudden, she could SEE the spell. It was a perfectly straight cord, connecting her broom to whoever was casting this awful magic. Harry could reach out and hold it in her hand; she did. It was a spell cast by someone who wanted to hurt her, Harry knew it the instant she touched it.

'Too bad for you then!' Harry mentally growled, now VERY angry at whoever it was, 'Now get _**OFF**_ my _**BROOM!**_'

With that command, the cord vanished into thin air, like it had never existed. Her broom, its own flying magic suppressed by the attacking spell, stopped hovering.

Before they could fall, Harry had already slipped on top of the broom and was urging it to get moving. The Nimbus responded almost instantly, and Harry promptly flew for the ground under her own power. Forget any promises, this game was the WORST possible idea she had ever -

"_OW!_" Harry yelped, braking in a halt while still in midair as something seized hold of her ponytail and yanked, hard. For the love of…how was this going to get any worse!

Harry reached up and checked her hair…blinking when she felt something unexpectedly familiar there. It was small, and it was stuck, wings beating frantically as it tried to escape. Without a thought, Harry pulled it out quickly and looked at it.

'But this means…'

Harry blinked, then, to her own surprise, waved her prize above her head and yelled, "I'VE GOT THE SNITCH!"

And the game ended in complete confusion.

…


	21. Better Late than Never

...And this would be the Post-Christmas, Mid-Hannukah-slash-New Year's chapter of the fic!

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I surprised myself by writing this today (PS, got back yesterday, Florida was loads of fun, 18-hour car ride either way...less fun...although thanks to 3 books of HP on tape, I've started thinking in a British accent) so anyway, if its weird, then its me.

Of course, I'm not colabing this with anyone, so I guess it couldn't really be anything BUT me at all...agh! Brain hurties.

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Disclaimer: See last chapter

Claimer: Same here, dunderhead

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"And you're absolutely certain it was Professor Snape?" Harry blinked.

"I saw him. I've read all about jinxes, and he was most definitely casting one on your broom," Hermione nodded.

The game had ended less than fifteen minutes ago. The rest of Gryffindor House was already back at the castle, heading up to the common room with promises of a stupendous party to celebrate the semi-official maiden flight of their new Seeker, but Hermione had pulled Harry aside before she had gotten out of the stands to explain what had happened. Harry, however, wasn't convinced.

"Hermione, I know Professor Snape doesn't like me," Harry began.

'_To put it extremely **mildly**_,' she mentally added.

"But I don't think he would want to kill me."

Hermione frowned, but only in puzzlement.

"It's just not logical at all," the bushy-haired girl said, "Your broom was definitely being jinxed. Maybe someone was trying to give Slytherin an unfair advantage, but Professor Snape was most certainly doing something to your broom…but how could a teacher stoop so low as to cheat like that?"

"_Hermione_," Harry sighed, "Professor Snape must have been doing something, but I don't think he was jinxing the broom. Whoever was doing it wanted to kill me, I could tell - and please don't give me that look, I'm not being morbid. This is very serious!"

"But why would anyone want to kill you?" Hermione blinked, "And who?"

"…Maybe one of Volde - sorry, one of You-Know-Who's old friends came by to get in some revenge or something," Harry shrugged, deciding to worry about it later, "Who knows? Anyway, we'd better get to the common room now. Fred and George looked a bit put off that I wasn't coming straight back for the party."

Both girls turned, started walking - and nearly ran into someone who had been standing hidden nearby for a bit now. Harry blinked a few times to make certain she wasn't seeing things, but Malfoy remained. He looked like his cloak was full of biting ants, and his gaze flickered to Hermione once, eyeing her uncertainly.

"…Did you…need something?" Harry slowly asked, wondering what - if anything - Malfoy might have overheard.

Flushing red and losing his nerve, Malfoy blurted, "G-Good game," before turning and bolting for the safety of the castle, leaving the Gryffindor girls to slowly make their own way back, Hermione quite amused at the antics of Harry's secret Slytherin admirer.

Harry, however, was thinking - if Malfoy had heard, and had stayed to defend his Head of House…what information might he have divulged?

Unfortunately, there was no time to dwell on this - in the aftermath of the Quidditch victory party, there were still classes to go to, with the subjects growing steadily harder and the castle growing colder as December rolled in. In what seemed like almost no time, McGonagall had passed around the sign-up sheet for those students who were staying at Hogwarts over the holidays.

Harry was one of the first to register that she was staying over for Christmas. Hermione had invited Harry to visit her house, but her muggle parents would have wanted the Dursleys' permission for Harry's visit, and that was something the Dursleys would have had great pleasure in denying. Best to just avoid the problem altogether.

In response to Harry's near-fatal first game, Ron had promptly apologized for being a git and was making efforts to be friends with Harry again. He and Hermione were still fairly cool to one another, but it was close enough that Harry decided to take them to visit Hagrid in his cabin with her, two weeks before the end of the term. The enormous man was pleased as punch to meet some of Harry's little friends - though both were taller than she was - and Hermione and Ron found it hard to be stiff with each other in Hagrid's cozy warm cabin, even with Fang the Boarhound seemingly determined to lick Ron's brain through his ears.

Hagrid served hot tea, which was welcomed, and rock cakes, which Harry knew better than to accept. Hermione and Ron, however, were nursing sore teeth soon enough, while they and Hagrid chatted.

Things got interesting when Ron brought up the three-headed dog he and Hermione had seen all those months ago.

"I mean, do you know what that huge thing could be doing in there, Hagrid?" Ron asked.

Hagrid looked slightly flustered.

"How do yeh know 'bout Fluffy?" the gamekeeper asked in return. 

"It's named _Fluffy?_" Ron blinked, then added, "How do you know about that - that -err…about…'Fluffy'?"

"Well, obviously 'cause he's mine," Hagrid said, "Bought 'im off a Greek chappie in a pub las' year. Yeah, an' I lent him teh Professor Dumbledore teh guard the -"

Hagrid froze, apparently catching himself. The three students, however, found this MOST interesting.

"Do you know what it's guarding, Hagrid?" Hermione asked.

"Can't tell yeh that," Hagrid said gruffly, "More'n my job's worth teh tell yeh that."

While Hermione and Ron continued to badger Hagrid - at last, they had found something they both enjoyed doing! - Harry started adding things up inside her head.

When they had gone to Gringotts, Hagrid had gotten that tiny thing out of the second vault on Dumbledore's orders. Now there was something hidden in the school, being guarded by - at least - one enormous three-headed dog, suggesting it was something very important indeed. This, again, was on Dumbledore's orders…it couldn't be a coincidence.

"Hagrid," Harry spoke up suddenly, "Whatever happened to that thing you got out of Vault Seven-Hundred and Thirteen, back on my birthday?"

Hagrid flushed scarlet, apparently flustered beyond words and proving Harry's theory.

Very shortly afterwards, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were being ushered out of Hagrid's cabin, rock cakes hastily shoved into their hands, with an exclamation that it was getting VERY late and they needed to get back to the school in time for supper.

"Just give us a hint of what's down there, _please?_" Ron pleaded as he was stopped and licked by Fang on his way out.

"Keep yer noses out o' that," Hagrid said, putting an enormous foot down, "What that dog's guardin' is between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicholas Flamel, an' I DON'T want teh hear you've been snooping!"

Hagrid closed his door sharply, too flustered to realize he'd given Ron exactly what he had asked for.

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Quietly pooling their information over dinner, Harry, Hermione, and Ron discovered they had found something very intriguing was going on at Hogwarts.

Ron, being from a wizarding family, read the _Daily Prophet_ - the wizarding newspaper - on a regular basis. And on July 31st, Harry's birthday, someone had broken into Gringotts and gotten away without being caught or trapped. The article clearly stated that '_the vault in question had in fact been emptied earlier the same day_', which was what Hagrid had done, taking out that little packaged-up thing. And there was also someone named Nicholas Flamel involved…

Hermione, with the help of a reluctant Ron and a less than curious Harry, lead them in a frantic search of the Hogwarts library for anything on this 'Nicholas Flamel'. Searching whenever any of them had free time, Hermione and Ron were soon horrified/annoyed to find there seemed to be absolutely nothing on the man.

Harry couldn't find anything either, but she didn't mind very much. Harry thought she might have heard his name before, but wondering who had tried to kill her seemed to be a more productive use of her time.

Soon enough, though, the term ended and Hermione went home on the train for Christmas, leaving Harry with the parting admonition that it would be a good idea to look in the Restricted Section of the library. The fact that that was the section that not even Hermione could browse without a signed teacher's note didn't seem to factor into her thinking.

Personally, Harry planned to enjoy the holiday taking simple pleasure in her total lack of any Dursleys.

…


	22. Merry Everybody?

Yeah, here's the next chapter. Also, about the chapter titles - I am pestering FFnet to the best of my ability, so maybe someone will notice and fix it at some point.

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What? Miracles do happen...

Oh, and if its asked for, I'll leave a list of chapters in the correct order so nobody has to hunt blindly through the fic to keep up.

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Disclaimer: I do not own THE Harry Potter

Claimer: I do own THIS Harry Potter

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…

None of the Weasleys had gone home for holidays, but Harry found that aside from the five of them, there was no one else left in in Gryffindor Tower. Prior to Christmas, Harry amused herself by watching Ron slaughter Percy in Wizard Chess and trying to play Exploding Snap with Fred and George's homemade rules and cards - both of which could turn out to be MORE than a little dangerous sometimes.

Christmas Eve, Harry went to bed thinking of the Christmas Feast that was going to held tomorrow. Plenty of food AND no Dursleys - what a present to get this year! Since even getting one was rare for Harry in the Dursley household, Harry went to sleep feeling rather pleased with herself.

She was rudely awakened at what must have been the **bloody** crack of **dawn** by someone shaking her shoulder. Blinking blearily at the offending intrusion, Harry first thought it was her poor vision that was making her believe it was Fred and George Weasley standing there.

"HAPPY CHRISTMAS!" they bellowed the second they saw she was mostly awake. 

"Come on, Harry, we made Ickle Ronnikins wait to open presents with you in the Common Room," Fred said next, grinning.

"Yeah, and while you two take care of that, we have some stuff of our to go through," George added, "You up yet, Harry? 

"How…" Harry started, then shook her head and said, "No, actually, I don't think I really want to know how you got into the girls' tower. Tell Ron I'll be down in a minute."

Still smiling illegally brightly, both twins strolled calmly out the door as Harry fumbled for her glasses. It must be a Weasley family tradition or something, she decided as she found the threadbare dressing gown Petunia had salvaged from some charity drive. Getting up before sunrise to gather 'round the presents…problem was, you needed to get something first, and Harry hadn't…

Harry's thoughts trailed to a screeching, crashing halt as she noticed the tidy pile of packages waiting calmly at the foot of her bed. They looked like perfectly ordinary parcels, wrapped in brown paper, but these were - Harry could have sworn her jaw had hit the floor - these were _real live Christmas presents_ - for HER!

…Maybe it was one of those 'Christmas Miracles' those kiddie programs went on about this time of year?

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Ron was impatiently waiting for her by the time Harry managed to recover her senses and carry the pile down the stairs. With a huff of, "What took you so long? It's been almost five whole minutes, I mean really," the red-haired boy eagerly reached for his own stack of gifts.

Shaking the last bit of surprise out of her mind, Harry picked through her own pile. At least none of these seemed to be from any of Harry's secret-mail-time-chocolate-and-fruit-senders…she was eyeing a rather lumpy package suspiciously when Ron, having apparently noticed her slower pace, spoke up.

"Oh, this one must be from Mum," Ron said, hefting it in his hand, "Err, I hope you don't mind, but I told her you weren't expecting many presents this year, and - oh NO, she must have made you a Weasley Sweater."

To emphasis his point, Ron swiftly unwrapped a lumpy present of his own and blanched.

"And here's mine…blimey, I wish she'd pick a different color sometime, I can't stand maroon…"

Ron's sweater was solid maroon, and looking at it made Harry's eyes hurt. Hoping very dearly that Ron's mum had other colors of yarn besides maroon, Harry tugged her own parcel open…and breathed a very small sigh of relief that only an ocean of bright emerald knitting spilled out.

Along with the sweater - which wasn't more than one or two sizes too big, much to Harry's interest as she pulled it on - Mrs. Weasley had sent along a tin filled with fudge that was either magic-made or homemade.

The fudge was nice, but the next two packages were tiny and extremely pitiful in comparison. And they turned out to be another new experience for Harry - one was a present from Petunia and Vernon, the other from Dudley. Petunia's sharp script detailed, '_We received your message and enclose your Christmas present. From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia_.' Taped to the other side of the note was a pence piece. Even odder, Dudley's was a stale toffee from twenty years ago and a tiny note that said '_I don't want your owl staring at me anymore. Smeltings is way better than your stupid school anyway!_'

'No love lost there,' Harry sighed to herself, even though it was really weird that Petunia and Vernon would give her money and that Dudley would give her candy. Hogwarts' existence must be having a very strange effect on them.

"Oh!" Ron suddenly gasped, making Harry blink owlishly.

"Look at that odd thing," Ron said, staring at the pence piece, "Is that _money?_"

"You can have it," Harry sighed, peeling it off the note and handing it over immediately.

While Ron ogled his new pence piece, Harry turned to her other presents, confident the worst was over. And it was, mostly. Hagrid had sent her a hand-cut flute that sounded vaguely owlish when it was blown. A big, rectangular one from Hermione contained Harry's own copy of Hogwarts, A History. Fred and George had given Harry a large package of Every-Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs - '_A growing boy needs his nourishment!_' their note cheerfully pointed out.

The last two packages were weird, though. Inside one was a green locket that was designed to look like some animal Harry didn't recognize, but it was empty inside. It didn't look like the kind for keeping pictures…it came without a note, which Harry was almost used to by now.

The other was even freakier. Harry only opened it a little bit, only to have something silvery start pouring out onto her lap. Quickly, she shoved it back inside, but a note had already been deposited.

In narrow, loopy writing Harry didn't recognize, the note simply said, '_Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well._'

There wasn't any signature, only a large '_A Very Happy Christmas to you_' at the bottom.

Harry hid the package and its note underneath her new book. Plenty of time to think about this later - and besides, Fred and George had just bounded down the stairs. They were wearing sweaters sent to them by their mother, both blue. Unlike Harry's or Ron's, one of Fred and George's sweaters had a big yellow 'F' on the front, and the other had a 'G'.

"Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas!" Fred yelled as they entered.

"Ah!" George exclaimed, "Look! Harry's got a sweater too!"

"Yes, and doesn't he look just _lovely_ in it," Fred agreed, "C'mon, Ron, why aren't you wearing yours? They're cozy and warm." 

"I can't stand maroon," Ron groaned as he reluctantly tugged his on.

"Hmm, I see you lot don't get any letters on yours," George said, examining Ron with sudden gravity, "Bet she thinks you don't get confused about who you are like we do."

"Yeah, but we made sure and checked it this time. We're most definitely Gred and Forge," Fred said, waving a hand airily.

"What's all this racket?" Percy inquired, emerging at the bottom of the boy's staircase, a lump under one arm.

Fred and George jumped him immediately.

"P is for _Perfect Prefect Percy!_" they sang as they grabbed Percy's sweater and raised it over his head.

"What are you - _gah!_"

Percy nearly choked on his glasses as the twins unceremoniously dragged the sweater down on top of him, pinning his arms to his sides.

"Don't complain, Percy, we're all wearing them, even Harry got one this year you know," George tut-tutted as they all watched Percy struggle to escape from his lavender yarn straightjacket.

"Harry's is nicer than ours, I think," Fred added, turning to eye Harry and her sweater, "Watch out for hair dye in the fudge, old boy - I think Mum might want to take you home with us this summer."

"Those two don't know when to stop joking around," Ron sighed, getting up and stretching his arms with a queasy crack, "At this rate we'll miss the feast!"

"Never fear, Ickle Ronnikins," Fred and George grinned, "We have all our priorities in order! And get back here, Percy, no escaping up the stairs - you're going to sit with us at the feast, this is a time for family you know…"

Harry gathered her new things, and trudged upstairs with something odd in her throat. Maybe this WAS the worst Christmas ever after all.

…


	23. A very merry UNbirthday to you

**_(NOTE ON 3/8/06: Never mind. Fixed 'em!) _**

First of all, no, that's not the right order, my fic's chapters are messed up.

The first six chapters are not in the right order. I shall now list them in the correct order for you - and give the admin a whistle, will ya? This kind of screwup makes perfectly decent fics everywhere look bad, you know.

**THE CORRECT ORDER OF CHAPTERS 1 THROUGH 6:**

1. In the beginning

2. And now

3. A very Harry Birthday

4. First Letter

5. You've Got Owls! (Owls, Mail? Get it?)

6. Hey up there

Chapter 7 (We're off to see the wizard) and onwards is in the correct order. Thank you for bothering to read this!

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Disclaimer: I do not own **THE** Harry Potter

Claimer: I do own **THIS** Harry Potter

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…

It wasn't much noticed, but Harry's mood was still very flat by the time Ron started roaring up the stairs that friends or not, he wasn't going to jeopardize the Christmas Feast by missing it waiting for her when she knew the way to the Great Hall better than he did.

Not even the sounds of Fred and George immediately doing something to their youngest brother in immediate retaliation - it sounded like pinching from where Harry was on the staircase - perked Harry's excitement. But still, it was important to go, and she was already ready…so to the feast Harry went.

And the Christmas Feast WAS a pretty incredible event, even by Hogwarts' standards. Dozens of roasted turkeys, mountains of roasted and/or mashed potatoes, tureens of buttered peas and boats of gravy and cranberry sauce fought for control of the tabletops with the piles of party favors. Especially prominent were the noisemakers, and these weren't the annoying popping ones Dudley liked to get, either. Fred and George urged Harry to pull one, and the sound was exactly like a cannon firing, leaving Harry's ears ringing for over an hour. The prizes were also far superior: by the time Harry was able to excuse herself from the table, she had become the owner of several new presents, including a personal set of wizard chessmen and a authentic rear-admiral's hat that George had insisted she take. At least it was more tasteful than the flowery bonnet Professor Dumbledore had gotten from his noisemaker…

After the Feast, Fred and George insisted on the whole family and Harry going outside to play in the snow and build snowwizards and snowwitches. Percy's complaints of how juvenile this seemed were silenced by a snowball to the mouth, which lead directly to a snow war with every man for himself.

Then it was back up to Gryffindor Tower, where dinner was leftovers from the Feast and the entertainment was watching Percy chase Fred and George around after they stole his Prefect badge.

It was only after everyone else, sleepy and full of food, had finally decided to go to bed that Harry returned to her dormitory and remembered that she hadn't actually opened her last present yet - the one the unsigned note said had once belonged to her father.

So, in the interest of discovery, Harry pulled off the paper to reveal a very unusual piece of fabric. It was light, spidery one might say, and gleamed very strangely in the moonlight coming through the dormitory window. Not entirely sure what her father would have ever needed this thing for - wasn't it a little, well, 'girly'? - Harry pulled it around herself and went to go see how her reflection looked in the mirror.

Much to Harry's horror, it looked as if she had been reduced to nothing more than a ghastly floating head!

Common sense returned a few seconds later, and Harry realized that of course she wasn't missing her body, it was just invisible under the strange cloth. Pulling it up to wear it like a cloak, Harry started feeling amused. She couldn't see anything in the mirror at all now.

'With a cloak like this,' Harry thought to herself as she twirled around to look at her invisible self from behind, 'I could sneak up into the boy's dormitory and surprise Ron tomorrow morning. It's good for spying - I wonder if my dad used it to sneak around and spy on people when he was here at school, if he had this cloak then. Why, I could even go into the Restricted Section, and…'

Harry's thoughts trailed off. Oh, of _course!_ It was so _obvious!_

Less than an hour later, Harry was gliding silently through the halls of the school, heading for the library. There probably wasn't going to be a better time to go; during the day, it would be too dangerous to wander around invisible, in case someone ran into her by accident. At the moment, everyone would still be tired and sleepy from their day of eating and opening presents.

Harry had the invisibility cloak tucked under her new sweater, which she was wearing over her regular clothes from today. If she met someone on the way to or from the library, Harry planned to say that she had been walking off stomach pains from too much food. She figured it was highly unlikely that anyone would notice how little she had really eaten anyway.

Just outside the library, Harry pulled out the cloak and draped it over herself. Then she pulled out the two other things she had brought - her wand and a small jar. Hermione had taught Harry this spell before the break - the bushy-haired girl simply loved showing off what she could do - and with a few words, bright blue flames were lighting the way as Harry tiptoed into the Restricted Section.

Harry was glancing down the rows of books in the 'F' section when she realized she was making a mistake. Looking for Nicholas Flamel wasn't the right way to be going about this at all - if that was even the right name to be looking for - because he might not be someone important enough to be written about. What needed to be focused on was that there was something inside Hogwarts that was small, valuable, and possibly powerful. Once they learned what THAT was, Nicholas Flamel and his involvement (whatever it was) would fall neatly into place, Harry was certain. Still tiptoeing, Harry went in search of a different section of books.

Hours of skimming later, Harry pushed the thick volume shut with a sigh. _Ancient Objects of the Great Arts_ had proven to be a mine of information, but the problem was that nothing in there was small enough to be the tiny package Harry had seen in the vault. A lot of the stuff in this book seemed either designed to cause pain and misery to people or else needed loads of people to suffer pain and misery in order to work, and it all **sounded** like it should be guarded from the public by a monstrous, three-headed dog named Fluffy, but nothing fit and it was getting past time for Harry to return to Gryffindor Tower.

Returning the book back to its shelf, Harry crept out of the library, made certain there was no one and nothing watching her, and stowed the cloak back underneath her sweater. Extinguishing the fire in the jar, Harry began making her way back to the dormitory, going along a slightly different route this time.

Thinking on it in the future, Harry would never quite figure out why that door had caught her attention. It was in a corridor not used for classes, and the door was slightly ajar, almost inviting entry. There was something inside that was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, though, and thus unnerved, Harry reluctantly stopped and turned towards the door. Maybe if she only glanced around quickly…

Once she was inside, Harry was puzzled to find herself looking at an extremely large mirror. It was a full-length one, only more oversized, and the framing had been done in a way to suggest that it was a very old mirror. However, the moonlight gleaming off its glass showed that it was in extremely good condition…and was that writing engraved along the top?

With oddly shaped letters, the mirror declared: '_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_'

The word 'Erised', Harry recognized instantly - how could she not, when it had been right in the book she had just spent hours reading? This was the 'Mirror of Erised', also called the 'Mirror of Desire'. According to that book, this mirror would show you the thing you wanted most. From the various descriptions, Harry had reasoned that this mirror was mostly useful for making people go insane.

Harry wanted to turn around and go back to the dormitory, but she was still a little curious. Maybe other people knew what they wanted most of all, but Harry wasn't sure she'd recognize what she might see if she looked. Should she? It sounded like a VERY bad idea…and a wonderfully tempting one at that…

…Well…alright. Maybe just a quick look. That way, she would know just what her greatest desire was. If you knew what it was, it would be that much easier to fulfill, wouldn't it? Then you could spend the rest of your life doing something else, because your goal had been reached…and it would only be a tiny little peek, no staring vacantly into the mirror until she starved to death, like those people in the book, right?

Before she could talk herself out of doing it, Harry screwed her eyes shut, stepped in front of the Mirror of Erised, and opened them again. It was hard to see, with only the moonlight from the window lighting the room, but Harry could see that her reflection was in the glass.

Harry frowned to herself a little. Maybe this wasn't the real Mirror of Erised after all, but a exact duplicate. Leaving an ancient, dangerous mirror sitting around in a school did seem like a rather stupid thing when you thought about it…wanting to make sure, Harry peered closer for a better look. Hmm…and wasn't there something strangely different about her reflection in this mirror?

There was. The Harry in the mirror was taller, and had better glasses - these looked like they had been made specially for her, not gotten as lousy cast-offs. This Harry was healthier and happier looking, too. In fact, when she looked closer, Harry was astonished to realize that this reflection-Harry didn't have the lightning bolt scar on her forehead.

But most importantly, reflection-Harry was not alone in the mirror. Standing on either side of the reflection-Harry was a man and a woman. The woman was beautiful, with long, dark red hair and bright green eyes. The man had black hair, which curled around the same way Harry's always did, and underneath his glasses his eyes were blue. The man and the woman had their arms around the reflection-Harry, and it looked as if they were one big happy family -

Harry couldn't look anymore. A kind of agony was shooting through her - someone was trying to rip her heart out of her chest by taking hold of it and PULLING -

This WAS her greatest desire - what she wanted, what she had ALWAYS wanted so BADLY, and could never, EVER have…a wound in Harry's heart, first opened, perhaps, by the very same curse that had given Harry her scar, and left infected and festering by the torment and neglect of the Dursleys, now roared into new life and agony.

Harry's greatest desire was to never have been attacked by Voldemort. It was to have grown up happy and healthy with a family that loved her -

Her legs were buckling, the emotional storm roaring through her head playing havoc with the rest of her body. The image that had ripped the long suppressed pain in her soul to the surface was blurred and fading, hidden behind a veil of tears that she couldn't seem to stop, but it was still there, watching her, _mocking her -!_

"Oh, my poor child," someone's voice murmured from behind her.

Harry barely noticed, in her misery, that someone else had come in; instead, when someone turned her away from the mirror and pulled her into a hug, Harry could do nothing but continue to sob, unable to do a thing to control herself until her emotions subsided to more reasonable levels.

It was when she was starting to calm down that Harry became aware, through the stifling muzzy feeling that accompanies any good, hard cry, that her tears were soaking into the silvery beard of the Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore.

She jumped away instantly, as if stung, stammering a half-unintelligible apology, and scrubbed at her face hurriedly with the sleeve of her sweater. Harry was now **extremely** angry at herself - that **disgusting** display of emotion was uncalled for, and to cry anywhere near another person, especially in the Headmaster's presence, was nothing less than **shameful**. Very pointedly, Harry made certain she was not looking at Dumbledore OR the Mirror as she waited for what would undoubtedly be a harsh scolding about her nocturnal activities.

But instead of giving Harry any scolding, Dumbledore merely sighed. When the Headmaster spoke, it was with a gentle, kindly tone.

"I see, Miss Potter, that you, like the hundreds before you, have discovered the power of the Mirror of Erised."

The Headmaster paused, perhaps to give her a chance to speak, but Harry didn't feel like talking.

"The Mirror will be moved tomorrow, Harley," Dumbledore finally said, "And I would only ask that you do not speak of this to anyone, please. The deepest desires of ones heart are not exposed lightly, as you have learned, and I would prefer to need not patrol the halls against others who suffer from their curiosity."

Harry, noting an odd tone to Dumbledore's words, finally dared glance up at him, only to find that the old wizard wasn't looking at her. Instead, he was looking at the Mirror - or was it in? If he really _was_ looking into it, his desire didn't seem to be fazing him very much…

"Are you wondering what I see in this mirror?" Dumbledore inquired, suddenly looking Harry's way with a twinkle in his eyes.

She bit her lip, unwilling to admit the sudden resurrection of her curiosity, and Dumbledore gave her a grandfatherly smile.

"I don't mind sharing," the Headmaster said, "For you see, when I look into the Mirror, I see myself holding…a pair of socks."

Harry felt her jaw drop, and shut her mouth before her gaping like an idiot further embarrassed her in front of the Headmaster. Dumbledore merely smiled wider, his eyes twinkling madly away.

"Yes, big, thick, wooly socks. I didn't get a single pair for Christmas this year…people will insist on giving me books. Ah well, we mustn't keep you up too late, Miss Potter. Professor Snape, will you please escort the young lady back to her dormitory…?"

Harry had been so unnerved by this point that she didn't even bat an eyelid when Snape's scowling visage melted out from the shadows in the room. Without a word he turned and started walking away, and Harry followed diligently, her mind preoccupied.

The terrible image from the Mirror of Erised was pushed firmly to the bottom of her consciousness, which left only the weirdness of the Headmaster to deal with. Was that the weirdest way to request a gift or what? Harry mentally shrugged - if he wanted socks so badly, she could send him some for his birthday or something. The old wizard would probably be thrilled. Harry didn't know when Dumbledore's birthday WAS, exactly, but it must be somewhere on those ten or so copies of his Chocolate Frog card that she owned…

…


	24. You call this normal?

College and work have mutated together to form an evil creature...one that keeps me away from my computer and never lets me update! Agggggggghhh!

Heh, just kidding. Well, not about not getting a chance to update...oh well.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: I own this version of Harry Potter

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Needless to say, Harry didn't breathe a word about her late-night adventure with the Mirror of Erised. It wasn't very hard to hide, as everyone else in Gryffindor Tower had been sleeping off their Christmas. Harry folded up the Invisibility Cloak and pushed it to the very deepest recesses of her trunk, not wanting a single reminder of what had happened. The rest of the break, Harry spent her time breaking in her new Wizard chessmen by losing repeatedly and spectacularly to Ron.

When Hermione came back from break to find that almost no progress on their search for Nicholas Flamel had been made, the bushy-haired witch fussed and fumed over the waste of time. Even when Harry explained her own search (with any mention of the Mirror carefully edited out), Hermione was only slightly mollified.

"I suppose you have a point," Hermione admitted when Harry revealed her line of thought, how it was more sensible to look for the hidden object first, "But there must be thousands and thousands of valuable things that size, mustn't there?"

Ron, who was listening in over breakfast that morning, added an odd momentary insight.

"There's loads more than that, really," the red-head said, "It could be shrunk down, or even just a piece of something bigger. D'you think we should ask Hagrid again?"

"And risk letting him know how he was the one to tell us about Flamel in the first place? He might get in a lot of trouble for it," Hermione replied, "Anyway, he's not stupid, Ron, he wouldn't say anything."

Detaching herself from the conversation - not that she had had anything more to add anyway - Harry chewed on a piece of bacon and turned her thoughts towards the new school term. Flamel and Fluffy weren't the only mysteries at Hogwarts.

Snape, for example, had somehow become almost tolerable as a teacher. Harry hadn't lost any points for Gryffindor for wandering the corridors after dark on Christmas, but had suspected that Snape would find an easy enough excuse to take fifty or a hundred points away during the school year - indeed, he seemed to take great pleasure in his vindictive behavior.

But instead, Snape had done nothing. Sure, he was still a sour-tempered man, and Gryffindor was losing twenty-five points every time he taught a class for that House, but even his fiery-hot hatred of Harry was dimming to a more lukewarm distaste and even ignorance.

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In the corridors, almost everyone had stopped staring - they were getting used to the idea that yes, there goes Harley Potter, off to take her First Year, what else was new? Even the stupid breakfast mail presents were becoming intermittent. Instead, Harry found her life was suddenly being taken over by _normalcy_.

Wood was stepping up their Quidditch practices with the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match coming up. The workload from classes was stepping up as well. Apparently, the professors were using the possibility of an exciting Quidditch match as an excuse to make certain no one would shirk off their schoolwork.

If that was the case, and Harry wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't, then the professors were in for a disappointment. Harry had vowed to make her next match the shortest ever played. That way, if the one responsible for her nearly-fatal first match decided to try again, they wouldn't get a chance.

Of course, if that curse DID reattach itself to her broom, Harry thought as she mused over the memory of her first match, she could just break it off like last time.

'I wonder if there's anything written about being able to see magic like I can,' Harry suddenly wondered.

Then she shrugged. With her luck, it was probably the next chapter in the book about Nicholas Flamel that Hermione was still so sure existed.

The day of the Quidditch match dawned bright and cheery, but Harry was greeted with unwanted news over the meager bits of breakfast Ron and Hermione were trying to make her eat.

"You're barking!" Ron exclaimed, staring at the unhappy Angelina who come over to break the news, "Why would anyone let Snape judge a Gryffindor Quidditch match? He'll take off a hundred and fifty points if we win!"

"It'll be fine, Ron," Hermione said, but she looked worried.

Harry successfully avoided being fed and escaped towards the locker rooms with Hermione and Ron's parting admonitions ringing in her ears.

_"Don't worry, I've been practicing this really neat curse, if Snape tries anything -"_

_"Be careful! Do you want to bring your wand with you? There's a spell I can teach you that -"_

Pushing every unwanted thought away, Harry pushed off when the whistle was blown and concentrated on the game, only on the game. She got an odd look from the Hufflepuff's Seeker when she immediately started doing fast laps up above the mass of Chasers and Beaters, but that was all part of the plan - Harry had been floating nearly still last time, and look what had happened then…

Underneath her, the Nimbus thrummed happily, pleased to be moving. It was rather a shame, Harry thought, that her strange sense only let her hear her broom. If Harry could sense where the tiny, elusive Snitch was, then she could end the game that much sooner. Even the blot of silver in the teacher's stands that was Dumbledore did nothing to reassure her.

0-

A peculiar ringing noise, one that by all rights should have been inaudible under the roar of the crowd and Lee Jordan's magnified commentary, drew Harry's gaze down on her next pass.

Down below floated Snape on his broom, and flitting around right behind him was the Snitch!

Snape seemed unaware of his tiny visitor - he was busily awarding a penalty to Hufflepuff because a Weasley twin had knocked a Bludger in his general direction - and no one else was in a position to see it. Any second now, the Snitch would flee, but Harry had a clear, unobstructed lane towards it right at her fingertips…

Harry dove. Pushing herself against the Nimbus to lower her air-resistance, Harry blasted towards Snape like a scarlet bullet, passing close enough to touch him. The Snitch detected her charge and attempted its escape, but it was too little, too late, and Harry ended the Quidditch match to delighted screams seconds later.

As everyone landed, Harry noticed that Snape looked especially pale and shaky, no doubt because she had probably given the man a heart attack by almost hitting him. Harry would have apologized if doing so in public wouldn't have shamed the proud Potions Master. Then she was dragged off by a wave of enthusiastic Gryffindors and the idea vanished as quickly as it had come.

…


	25. Power of the Written Word

Maa, I told you guys about the Horrible Mutant NeverUpdate monster that was making do just that last time, right?

Yeah, I'm on break right now. A few hours after started said break, this popped into my head. I really wasn't kidding when I said this thing is writing itself.

0-

0-

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: I do own this Harry Potter

* * *

… 

"This is outrageous! It's completely unnatural! How I ever ended up with tyrannical females like you as best mates is beyond me!"

Harry came down to the common room the next Sunday to discover Ron howling, groaning, and generally making a public idiot out of himself. As this wasn't very unusual behavior for Ron, the few Gryffindors hanging around ignored him.

"Ron! Will you please stop overreacting!" Hermione snapped.

"I am not overreacting!" Ron retorted, "This is a perfectly normal level of protest against a completely barmy idea!"

Pausing to take a breath, Ron noticed Harry standing next to them, wondering what was going on, and exclaimed, "C'mon, Harry, can't you talk some sense into her?"

"The only thing not making any sense, Ronald," Hermione interjected, "Is your utterly juvenile behavior!"

Harry had just decided that they were both under some kind of gibberish jinx when someone finally decided to take mercy on her. Ron and Hermione broke off their glaring long enough to notice the confused look on her face, and with some (much) arguing, they explained the problem.

"Harry, the end-of-term exams are coming up soon -"

"Soon! More like ages from now!"

"- AND I felt it would be prudent for us to begin going over our study schedules now, to make certain we'll be prepared, and someone seems to believe -"

"Has been pointing out that it's a load of rubbish, as there's no point trying this early and that someone doesn't even have to study since its quite obvious that she already knows EVERYTHING -"

"There's no replacement for being fully prepared, Ronald Weasley!"

"If you had your way, Hermione Granger, Quidditch would be a reading contest!"

"There's more important things in life than Quidditch!"

Ron merely gaped at this. It was a statement completely beyond his ability to grasp, so he could only stare at Hermione like a fish out of water as he vainly tried to think of some sort of response. Harry sighed to herself and moved to block any continuation of the argument.

"Will you please stop arguing? Hermione, not everyone can be as dedicated as you are to schoolwork. And Ron, will a little studying kill you?"

"But they're in ten weeks," Ron whined.

"I don't mean you should spend your every waking breath studying," Hermione huffed, "I just think that if you paid a little more attention to your schoolwork, it would be beneficial for you."

"You and I have VERY different ideas of what '_a little more_' attention is," Ron grumbled as he finally accepted one of the color-coded Schedules of Studying Hermione had drawn up for the two of them.

Harry accepted hers without any commentary. They were virtual rainbows, but Harry suspected that these were the 'dumbed-down' versions. She didn't doubt for an instant that Hermione was going to be a complete hypocrite about the 'studying every waking breath' thing. Honestly, they were sharing a room; Harry could count the number of times she'd heard Hermione mumbling facts and figures in her sleep using both hands and some of her toes.

Nevertheless, Harry headed back upstairs. At least it was a nice day outside - she could start re-reading her textbooks and enjoy the weather at the same time. Ron wouldn't enjoy sitting outside reading when he could be doing something else, but he'd enjoy it better than confinement to the library.

Digging through her trunk, Harry searched for her copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_. It had sunk to the bottom, of course, and in the process of searching Harry came across Hermione's copy of _Hogwarts, A History._ She had lent it to Harry long before the Christmas holidays, and since Harry had had her own copy for a while now, there wasn't any point in keeping it. Harry hadn't gotten very far anyway - one thing and then another kept coming up - and she had stuck an old Chocolate Frog Card in between the pages to mark her spot.

She might as well return it right now, Harry decided, and pulled the Chocolate Frog Card out. Headmaster Dumbledore smiled cheerfully up at her as Harry crossed the room and placed the book on Hermione's pillow. As she headed back to her own bed and trunk for more digging, Harry idly glanced over the writing on the back of the card - and almost walked right into one of the bedposts in shock.

'_Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicholas Flamel_.'

"_I'm so _STUPID!" Harry screamed, not noticing or caring that most of Gryffindor Tower could hear her. Studying driven completely from her mind, Harry raced back down the stairs. Hermione and Ron had left for the library already, and Harry pushed her way out of the common room in hot pursuit.

At the door to the library, Harry had to skid to a halt before she plowed right into Hagrid, who was just leaving. Nonplussed at the near-collision, though it wouldn't have fazed him at all anyway, Hagrid greeted her friendlily.

"All right, Harry? Where are yeh off teh in such a rush?" Hagrid asked.

"Sorry - I was - did you see if Ron - or Hermione - were in there, Hagrid?" Harry stammered out.

"Aye, they looked teh be settling down fer some serious studyin'," Hagrid said, "I was just pickin' out a book for myself. Just a little something teh read in the evenings…"

Hagrid was holding the book he had picked out in plain sight. Harry could see it now - it had a dragon prominently displayed on the cover, and was titled '_From Egg to Inferno: A Dragon-Keeper's Guide_'. Harry remembered how Hagrid had expressed his love for dragons when they had first met, and shook her head with sudden, exasperated fondness.

"Hagrid, reading books like that will only make you more unhappy not to have a dragon in the first place," Harry said.

A very peculiar expression crossed Hagrid's face, but then the enormous gamekeeper smiled and said, "Reckon that's prob'ly right. All the same…can yeh blame me?"

"Enjoy your book, Hagrid," Harry said, heading into the library.

A few rows in, Ron and Hermione had taken up two-thirds of a table, and were busily arranging their things for studying. Ron looked up when Harry emerged from the shelves, and made a face.

"If I have to stay in here and study, you should too," the red-head complained.

Dispensing with all preliminaries, Harry said simply, "I found Nicholas Flamel."

Ron gaped, and Hermione dropped the book she had just picked up. Not giving them a chance to start bombarding her with questions, Harry continued, "I'd thought I'd seen the name Nicholas Flamel somewhere before, and I found it in my trunk today, just a few minutes ago. Take a look."

Ron and Hermione peered at the Frog Card, and Ron made a loud sound of disgust.

"A hundred of these I've got back at home. Nicholas Flamel's been sitting in my room for the last two terms!"

Hermione, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking very rapidly.

"Hold on!" she exclaimed, dropping the card and leaping up to vanish into the maze of shelves.

Harry had just enough time to sit down in the chair the other two had saved for her before Hermione returned, a book the size of a small child filling her arms.

"I can't believe I completely forgot about this book," she said, letting the book land on the table with a loud 'thud' noise, "I even had this book checked out once last term, for a bit of light reading…"

"Light?" Ron asked, smirking.

Hermione stopping turning pages long enough to give him a dirty look, before flipping past a few more to reach what she was looking for.

"'_The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers_,'" Hermione read aloud, "'_The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife…_' No wonder I couldn't find him in _Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry_!"

"Blimey!" Ron said, "Think about that! All the gold you'd ever want, and eternal life to boot! Anybody'd want that!"

"I'd better not be hearing any plans about taking it to use for yourself, Ronald Weasley," Hermione said coolly.

"Of course I don't want it for myself," Ron said, only a little unconvincingly, "But this explains everything - especially why Dumbledore has that monster dog guarding it. It'll need three heads to keep an eye on everybody coming in to steal it!"

There was long silence as the three of them thought about that. Finally, Harry shrugged her shoulders and said, "All right, now, what's on the study schedule first?"

Ron made a face, and Hermione rolled her eyes at his immaturity before pulling out a sheaf of notes.

…


	26. Easter Eggs with Issues

Finally! Here it is, the next chapter, and hopefully I can get the rest out quicker from now on.

Hopefully is not the same as definitely, unfortunately.

Disclaimer: I do not own the actual Harry Potter

Claimer: I DO own THIS Harry Potter

* * *

… 

It became a bit of a habit between the three of them that every day, either Ron, Hermione, or Harry would sneak towards Fluffy's door, press an ear to it, and make certain the dog was still guarding the trapdoor. Fluffy soon noticed their coming and going, and this week the dog's heads would hover right by the door and growl loudly whenever it smelled one of the three of them. It was sort of comforting - even if the dog wouldn't hesitated to rip them to shreds, given the chance.

The weather was turning very warm, almost summerish, and as if that reminded the teaching staff that the term was going to end eventually, the class reviews for the end-of-term tests had begun. As if that wasn't enough - and judging from the way Hermione talked, it most certainly wasn't - the school's homework load was stepped up.

Everyone in Gryffindor Tower spent the Easter holiday listening to the bushy-haired witch's recitation of correct wand movements, proper pronunciation of incantations, MANY details from her extensive Transfiguration notes, correct proportions of Potions' ingredients…Ron was heard muttering more than a few times that he'd preferred it when Hermione wouldn't so much as give him the time of day.

At one point, becoming very tired of being stuck amongst all this complaining and bickering, Harry had actually written to Hagrid and asked if she could visit him until things settled down. The reply he sent back said that unfortunately, he was very busy, and that he didn't want her to risk doing well in her studies by running off to drink tea with him at all hours. This seemed most unusual, especially since Hagrid had not been seen doing any of his gamekeeper duties for at least a week.

When Harry made the mistake of asking Hermione what she thought of this, the other witch had replied that Hagrid had probably just taken ill and he was right, she did need to focus on her studies. A little annoyed by the brush-off - even though Hermione did have a perfectly valid point - Harry decided she ought to go for a walk, just to cool off her nerves.

There was one particular corridor where almost no one ever went. There were no classrooms in this corridor, but it had many windows which opened to the outside, and the view of the grounds and the lake were wonderful from that height. Harry had discovered it not long after her arrival at Hogwarts, and it was here she went to whenever the press of so many bodies got too much to bear. And none of Harry's previous visits to the window corridor had ever shown that anyone else had ever entered it besides her.

That was, of course, rubbish: Filch and Mrs. Norris, at least, who knew every inch of the castle, must certainly use this corridor sometimes. But Harry had never found any other students in the window corridor before - until now.

Much to Harry's surprise, none other than Draco Malfoy, the smitten Slytherin himself, was staring out one of the opened windows. It was one of the bigger ones, and the very same one that Harry herself liked to look out of. Malfoy's gaze didn't seem to be on anything in particular: he was staring into the distance, appearing lost in thought. Even more interesting, though, was that Malfoy was alone. Normally, two of the other Slytherin first years, Crabbe and Goyle, trailed Malfoy everywhere, as if they were his personal bodyguards. And Crabbe and Goyle could certainly perform that duty, as they out-massed two-thirds of the student body already.

But right now, Crabbe and Goyle were nowhere to be found. Harry decided that leaving and finding somewhere else to curl up was a splendid idea, but she had not backed away more than two steps before Malfoy noticed her presence. He blinked at her quite sheepishly.

"I didn't see you were there," Harry half-mumbled, taking another step backwards as she make her excuse.

"…No, its all right," Malfoy said, stopping Harry in her tracks with the unexpected tone in his voice.

Granted, she hadn't heard much from Malfoy besides 'Sneering' and 'Fawning', but now Malfoy sounded…quiet. Tired, almost…

"I don't wish to disturb you…I shall head back to my common room," Malfoy continued, stepping away from the window and moving as if to walk past where Harry was standing, back to wherever the Slytherin common room was.

"You're not," Harry said without thinking.

Malfoy paused and blinked at her again, clearly confused.

"Err…you aren't disturbing me, I mean," Harry clarified, "There's certainly plenty of space at the window for the both of us…"

Hesitantly, Malfoy returned to the window, and just as hesitantly, Harry joined him. What a stupid idea it had been to open her mouth - now things were twice as uncomfortable for both of them, and the idea of coming to the corridor (for Harry, at least) was to try and lose stress, not get more stress.

"So…" Malfoy said, clearly grasping for some sort of topic to make this seem less strange than it really was, "…You're in Gryffindor. Ah…how is that?"

"It's…fine," Harry answered, not looking at the boy while she spoke, "…Sometimes it…gets a bit loud."

"Huh," said Malfoy, who was also averting his gaze.

"…And…how is Slytherin?" Harry asked, thinking they might as well try to keep this parody of a conversation going.

Malfoy looked surprised she'd even asked. Harry wanted to take back the words she had spoken (all of them), but there was no way to do that now.

"…It's fine," Malfoy replied, "Everyone is…usually quiet."

"I see," Harry said.

There was minute of awkward silence. Harry was wracking her brains for something to say, and eventually managed to pull out, "…Professor Snape doesn't like me."

"…Professor Snape doesn't like anyone," Malfoy said.

"He seems to like you," Harry pointed out.

"Does he?" Malfoy said.

Harry turned to see if the boy was trying to tease her. Malfoy's expression was calm, unrevealing of his thoughts.

"He gives you points in every class," Harry said, "And talks about your 'vast Potions talent'. I think that would suggest like, as opposed to dislike."

"It would, wouldn't it?" Malfoy agreed.

His expression hadn't changed and Harry was starting to feel annoyed. Was he making fun of her or something?

"You're teasing me," Harry accused.

Malfoy's expression finally changed: now he looked confused again.

"Teasing you?" Malfoy asked.

"You keep answering me in questions. You're making fun of me, aren't you?" Harry said, "I was perfectly happy with the two of us trying to have a civil conversation, but if you are going to be like that, then I'm leaving."

Making good on her threat, Harry pushed herself away from the window. Malfoy's sudden protest stopped her from going any further, though.

"I'm not!" Malfoy exclaimed.

"Aren't you?" Harry replied.

"I'm not making fun of you," Malfoy insisted, "I am trying to hold a civil conversation with you. I'm…just not very good at it, that's all."

Harry felt a laugh bubbling inside her and forced it down. Fat load of good making Malfoy upset would do!

"That's…odd," Harry finally said.

"I'm…odd?" Malfoy blinked.

"I thought important pureblood families like yours were supposed to be good at everything ever invented, ever," Harry clarified, "What with you telling me as much when we met…about ten times."

"Ah…" Malfoy had the decency to look embarrassed now, "My father…isn't one for casual conversation. So, he saw no need to train me in that area, as he did for everything else."

"So, you came up here to practice?" Harry asked.

Malfoy opened his mouth to answer, then paused.

"Now you're the one teasing me," Malfoy said.

"I am?" Harry blinked.

"Stop that! If you won't let me talk like that, then you can't do it either!"

Harry couldn't completely suppress her chuckles this time, and turned to look outside again until she got herself back under control. Malfoy seemed to understand that she wasn't teasing him to be cruel - really, she wasn't! - and turned back to stare outside as well.

'If Ron came by here,' Harry thought, suddenly uneasy, 'He'd probably accuse me of fraternizing with the enemy or something. We probably look very cozy…'

"There he is again," Malfoy said, changing the subject abruptly, "That large fellow who works the boats."

Harry blinked at him for a second, then looked where Malfoy was pointing. Down on the ground was a large lump, dragging a smaller thing with it that might have been a sapling of some tree out of the Forbidden Forest. It was a very hairy-looking lump…oh.

"That's Hagrid," Harry said, "He's the gamekeeper."

"How do you know him?" Malfoy asked.

"He took me shopping for my school things, in Diagon Alley," Harry explained.

"That was when I met you," Malfoy offered.

"You and half the wizards in Britain met me that day," Harry sighed, recalling the fervent crowd inside the Leaky Cauldron with dismay, "I even met Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell."

"Snape and Quirrell?" Malfoy asked, "Snape hates Quirrell. They wouldn't be hanging around together."

"I met Quirrell first, then I met Snape after I met you," Harry said, "Quirrell was in the Leaky Cauldron, and Snape was going into the Apothecary. I doubt they were hanging around together."

As Malfoy seemed to mull over this information, Harry looked for Hagrid again. It looked like he was busily chopping the sapling into short sticks, and carrying the sticks over to the squashed lump that was his hut from this distance and angle.

"Huh, he's chopping firewood," Harry mused aloud.

"His house can't be that cold this time of year, can it?" Malfoy wondered.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"That must be the third tree he's pulled out of the forest today," Malfoy replied, "And I saw him chopping up five more yesterday, and six more the day before that. You can even see the smoke from here."

Malfoy pointed at the hut-lump, and sure enough, a steady pillar of smoke was pouring out of the top.

"What in the world?"

Harry turned and headed down the corridor, aiming for the stairs. Hagrid was up to something, and Harry had a feeling that it was not going to end well. She had almost reached the doors to the lawn when a shout reached her ears.

"Oi! Harry, wait for me!" Ron shouted again, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Ron? What is it? …And wasn't Hermione helping you with your homework?" Harry asked.

Ron make a face of pure disgust at the thought of his homework. Then the red-head grinned, partly mischievously and partially sickly with fear.

"The thing is, I talked her into going for all her extra books - so I would 'have all my resources available' - and since boys can't go up the girls' staircase…"

"You waited until she was upstairs and then ran," Harry sighed, "Oh Ron…I know you hate your homework, but Hermione is the best witch in our house. She's going to make your life miserable for this."

"I know!" Ron exclaimed, sounding completely panicked now, "Please, mate! You have to hide me until she gives up trying to kill me!"

'Hermione's not going to just try,' Harry sighed to herself.

"Fine. I was just going to check on Hagrid anyway. Come on, Ron, before Hermione figures out which way you went."

"Already ahead of you!" Ron yelped, and ran out the doors.

They made it the short distance to Hagrid's hut without any problems, unless you counted Ron's constant checks over his shoulder for signs of a rampaging Hermione. Harry knocked on the door, and there was a short pause before it was unlatched and cracked open enough for Hagrid's face to peer out.

"Oh! Hullo there, Harry! Hullo, Ron!" Hagrid greeted them.

"Hi Hagrid," Harry said, "Sorry to bother you, but we hadn't seen you for a while, and I was getting a bit worried."

"Ah," Hagrid said, sounding a whole lot less happy now, "Err…really, it's been nuthin' teh worry 'bout. An' I really shouldn' be distractin' yeh from yeh schoolwork, really -"

"Hide me!" Ron cried suddenly, "I can see her coming over the lawn!"

And Ron dove through the door, forcing it open just enough to wriggle inside past the startled Hagrid. Not three seconds later, Ron exclaimed, "Ugh! Why's it so hot in here?"

"Err…" Hagrid sheepishly opened the door wider, just enough for Harry to get inside, before closing and latching it again.

The temperature inside Hagrid's hut was murderously hot, no doubt to the roaring bonfire in Hagrid's fireplace. Underneath Hagrid's table, Fang was lying and panting, and Ron was doing an eerie imitation of the boarhound not too far away.

"Hagrid, why on earth are you keeping it so hot in here?" Harry asked.

"Ah…well, I guess yeh should know," Hagrid said, and walked to the fireplace.

Sitting in the fire was a iron pot. Hagrid used tongs to lift the pot out of the fire, and something in the pot rolled around noisily. Awkwardly, Hagrid held out the pot, warning Ron and Harry to be careful not to touch it. In the pot was a big, blackish-colored egg.

"Oh Hagrid," Ron said, going white, "You didn't."

"Didn't what?" Harry asked.

"Won it offa chap in the Hog's Head," Hagrid said, sounding proud as he returned the pot to the fire.

"That egg?" Harry asked again.

"Hagrid, you know they're outlawed, don't you?" Ron pointed out.

"I don' see wha' all the fuss is," Hagrid replied.

"What are you two talking about!" Harry snapped, finally drawing their attention her way.

"Sorry Harry, I forgot you wouldn't know," Ron said.

"That I wouldn't know what?" Harry asked, irritated beyond belief now.

"That egg is a dragon egg," Ron said, jerking a thumb towards the pot sitting in the fire, "But breeding dragons was outlawed in 1709, everyone knows that."

"Oh! That was why you wanted that book from the library!" Harry exclaimed, remembering the last time she and Hagrid had spoken.

"A book?" Ron blinked.

"Is it going to hatch soon?" Harry asked Hagrid.

"Next week," Hagrid admitted.

"Does the Headmaster know what you're doing?" Ron asked, "Did he ask you to find something to defend the stone besides Fluffy, then?"

"…And how do yeh know 'bout THAT!" Hagrid exclaimed, suddenly looking furious.

"Err...we guessed?" Ron lied.

Hagrid didn't look like he believed Ron, but still looked quite annoyed. After a few more questions, Hagrid admitted that yes, Dumbledore had visited for tea last week, he'd seen the egg, but the Headmaster hadn't commented on it at all.

"Nobody can tame a dragon, they're really vicious," Ron was saying now, "Hagrid, if the board of directors finds out that you were going to raise a dragon, they'd have you sacked!"

"I ain't gonna be -" Hagrid started, then paused.

"Who is that?"

A face, half-hidden by the curtains, had indeed been at the window, but by the time Hagrid, Ron, and Harry had gotten outside, their watcher was a black and white blur, hightailing it to the school as fast as he could go.

"Malfoy!" Ron cursed.

Malfoy, it seemed, had followed Harry to Hagrid's hut, and he had heard everything.

…


	27. Growing pains

Um, yeah. These guys are what, **twelve?** Emotionally stunted little kiddies that age don't need pairings, m'kay?

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: I do own THIS Harry Potter

* * *

… 

The next week was unbearable. Malfoy was never seen without the company of Crabbe and Goyle, leaving very little chance for Ron to follow through with his initial plan of beating Malfoy up muggle-style to keep him from talking. Hermione got over her irritation with Ron's earlier antics quickly enough, but between the three of them they had no idea what to do.

Daily visits to Hagrid reassured them that Malfoy had not told anyone, but Ron sourly pointed out that it would be much worse for Hagrid if the dragon was hatched and growing when he was caught with it. Hagrid stubbornly refused to part with the dragon egg whenever that idea was brought up in his presence.

One bright morning, right at breakfast, Hedwig brought Harry a note from the gamekeeper. It consisted of two words: _**It's hatching**_.

Harry showed the note to Ron and Hermione, and while Ron was all for leaving breakfast then and there and going to Hagrid's hut, Hermione wouldn't stand for the merest thought of skipping classes. With enough arguing, Ron agreed to wait until the morning break.

Trying to look like they were doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary (and failing miserably, Harry could tell) Ron and Hermione followed Harry down the lawn to Hagrid's. Hagrid cracked the door ever-so-slightly when they knocked, and ushered them in with only a quick glance around outside.

"He's nearly out," Hagrid said, his voice a fervent whisper.

On Hagrid's table sat the dragon egg. It was cracked now, and as the three Gryffindors watched, the egg rattled back and forth, as if something was inside it and trying to escape - which was pretty much the case.

There were a few more minutes of scratching and rattling before the egg split apart into several large fragments, releasing the baby dragon into the world. It was black, like the egg had been, with a little, thin body shorter than Hagrid's huge hand. It made up for that small size with a pair of oversized, leathery wings, which made the dragon vaguely resembled an umbrella.

"Ah, an' ain't he jest a little sweetie?" Hagrid cooed, reaching over to pet the baby dragon.

It bit at his hand with an irritated squeak, then sneezed, a few sparks shooting out of its nose.

"Bless him, little Norbie knows 'is mommy already," Hagrid grinned, nonchalantly patting out the sparks that had landed in his beard.

"…Norbie?" Ron finally regained his voice.

Harry elbowed him - Ron sounded like he wanted to either laugh hysterically or scream bloody murder from the rooftops at Hagrid's choice in names.

"Not now, Ronnikins," Harry hissed at him when Ron looked ready to complain.

"What breed is it, do you know Hagrid?" Hermione asked, curious despite the circumstances.

"A Norwegian Ridgeback," Hagrid said proudly, "That's rare, them. An' I've got everythin' already prepared for 'im: Norbie jest needs a bucket o' chicken blood an' brandy every half-hour, he won't be ready fer solid food fer a little bit yet…"

"Hagrid, your house is made of wood," Ron pointed out, taking time off being irritated with Harry when Baby Norbie sneezed sparks in his direction.

Hagrid was too busy cooing at the snarling and snapping Baby Norbie to listen or care.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione argued about it on the way back to the castle. They kept their voices low and their eyes peeled for anyone getting close enough to hear them, but it was a furious row nevertheless.

"This is bad," Ron repeated, "While it was still an egg Hagrid might of gotten off - the older classes might use an egg for their lessons - but now that its hatched, Hagrid's gotta dump the thing or else he's in for it!"

"Maybe Malfoy didn't actually see the egg," Harry offered, knowing it was a futile gesture before she opened her mouth.

"Oh no. Even IF he didn't see it, we were talking loudly enough," Ron said, "Malfoy's just going to wait until we're neck-deep in dragon dung before he owls his daddy, who is ON the Board - and bloody well runs it with his gold -"

"Ron!" Hermione hissed, then waved a cheerful hello to Seamus and Dean, who were just now walking past them.

Once the danger of being overheard passed, the argument resumed.

"Maybe Hagrid plans to take it somewhere else to raise?" Hermione offered, "Surely he knows that it would be very dangerous to keep a dragon at Hogwarts?"

"Hagrid doesn't think it's a danger," Ron retorted with a sniff, "Hagrid thinks Norbie is his precious little baby. But dragons are REALLY dangerous - you should see some of the burns Charlie gets off them!"

"Who is Charlie?" Hermione asked, now completely confused.

"Ah…Charlie's my second-oldest brother," Ron explained, "He graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago. Right now he's in Romania, studying dragons. Charlie's nutty about dragons, though it looks like he's not nearly as nutty as Hagrid is…"

They walked a few more steps before Ron stopped.

"Oh," Ron said, "Err…d'you think I should owl Charlie? See if he can come for a little visit, or at least talk some sense into Hagrid? Charlie used to visit Hagrid all the time, so Hagrid would probably listen…"

"I think a letter would be a very good idea," Harry said.

Ron wrote his letter as soon as they were back in the safety of the Gryffindor common room that evening, and Harry offered the use of Hedwig for delivery.

The next week passed tensely. Malfoy, who at least knew about the dragon's egg, if not the fact that the dragon had already hatched, seemed to be following Harry around. She wondered if Malfoy wanted to talk to her in private, but concerned that Malfoy might use his evil Slytherin ways to do evil Slytherin things to them if they were caught wandering around on their own, Ron and Hermione stayed as close as they could to Harry, preventing any such secret talk.

Ron himself also stepped up his own efforts to get Malfoy by himself for a severe muggle-style beating, but the constant presence of Crabbe and Goyle prevented any altercations.

Finally, Hedwig returned with Charlie's reply.

**_Dear Ron,_**

**_How are you? Thank you for the letter. I'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me next week. Trouble is, they mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon.  
Can you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while its still dark.  
Send me an answer as soon as possible._**

**_Love, Charlie_**

"I hope he's sent a letter to Hagrid too," Ron sighed, folding the note and shoving it into his bag, "We'd need another month to convince him otherwise.

In the week that had passed, Hagrid's dragon (which had been officially named Norbert Hagrid, much to the trio's chagrin) had more than tripled in size and length, and was now eating a crate of dead rats every hour. The grounds were looking noticeably shabbier by the day, as Hagrid was given no chance whatsoever to perform his regular duties. Other students were starting to voice concerns, but Hagrid was too infatuated with his no-longer-very-little Norbie to care much.

The next chance they had, Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed down to Hagrid's hut to tell him about Charlie's letter. Hagrid wouldn't let them inside.

"Norbie's jest goin' through a little tantrum at the moment," Hagrid explained through the window.

There was a ferocious hissing coming from inside the hut, and the other windows rattled in their frames as the dragon lashed out at the confining walls. Ron and Hermione looked appalled at what Hagrid considered a 'little' tantrum, while Harry found herself nodding in agreement. Really, Dudley had done worse over the years…

When Ron showed Hagrid Charlie's letter, the oversized man pulled out his own letter.

"Got it jest this mornin'," Hagrid admitted, "I'll tell yeh, I can't hardly stand the thought of it! Norbie's too little to go leavin' home an' start livin' on 'is own! If it were anybody but that brother o' yours, Ron, I wouldn't let 'em near my little Norbie."

Tears were welling in Hagrid's eyes as he spoke - though they might have just been the result of 'Little Norbie' sinking sharp teeth into Hagrid's leg.

"Only got the boot - he's really just playin' wi' me now - I'll see you lot on Saturday then," Hagrid said, pulling the window shut again.

"We're doomed," Ron groaned as the three of them returned to the castle, "How are we supposed to get ruddy little Norbie to the top of the castle without getting caught? Hermione, do you know any spells that'll do that?"

"Well…" Hermione thought about it.

"Obviously, we can always use the Levitation Charm - I assume we'll be carrying it up in a crate - and I did read about some other spells that would keep anyone from noticing us, and I do know a few hexes that would keep anyone who does notice us from telling - but I don't want to have to use those!" Hermione interrupted herself with a burst of righteous indignation, "If this doesn't work, or if it does and we get found out by one of the professors or Filch, we will be in SO much trouble, this is against SO many rules that I can't even figure out where to begin the list -"

"Shhh!" Ron hissed.

Hermione's voice had hit a high pitch, and the fact that they were surrounded by other students in the corridor - most of them neither Gryffindors nor First Years, and therefore completely unsympathetic - had gone almost unnoticed.

Harry nearly dragged Hermione and Ron up the nearest staircase, heading for the common room, where they could hopefully speak in some more privacy. If Norbert left before the population of Hogwarts became convinced that their trio was plotting some sort of evil Gryffindor conspiracy, it couldn't be too soon.

"So, we hear that you three are plotting some sort of evil Gryffindor conspiracy," Fred and George greeted the three of them as soon as they entered the common room.

…


	28. A dragon of a dilemma

I'm way way way way **WAY** sorry for the wait, everyone! But at least I have a good explanation!

You see, my college offers month-long summer semesters for some classes. Now, I hate my English class (and have failed it twice...Oi! Don't laugh! It's HARD!) and I figured, '_Wow, only a month of dealing with English and I only have to do two big essays instead of four? Yes, that's for me!_'

And now...my thoughts are more like '_**AGH! I'm going to die! Too much work!**_' This is because my college crams the bigger, longer classes into the month to make these tiny summer semesters...stupid college.

Although, I _think_ I'm getting a B...stupid hard work paying off.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Claimer: I DO own THIS Harry Potter

* * *

… 

"What!" Ron yelped, "Who told you?"

"We have no idea what you are talking about," Hermione said quickly.

She and Harry elbowed Ron, who stammered out a completely unconvincing, "We don't know what you're talking about."

"Alas, you haven't been properly informed on how the old Hogwarts rumor mill works yet," Fred said, sighing dramatically.

"Basically, if you ever say anything, the rest of the school finds out in an hour or less. No exceptions," George added with a grin.

"We aren't plotting any evil conspiracies," Harry said.

"Not without us, we should hope!" George laughed.

"And 'sides, as the Prankster Kings of Hogwarts, we have been given a royal duty to amuse ourselves while you work on big brother Charlie's present," Fred smirked, holding out a piece of paper covered with words written in familiar handwriting.

"Charlie's owled the whole school about it!" Ron groaned, "We're trying NOT to get Hagrid sacked!"

"Never fear, we're here!"

"That's why I'm nervous," Ron grumbled.

A moment later, Ron blinked, "Why did Charlie owl you two about it? He doesn't really think we need your help, does he? I imagine that that letter was really a warning for you two to keep out of this!"

"Nay, Ickle Ronnikins," Fred replied, "The thing is, Charlie's heard from Mum about how your two best mates are the two most studious girls in Gryffindor -"

"Can't imagine why she'd even think it," George smirked.

"- But since we don't need to worry about little things like that," Fred finished, "We're more than happy to whip up something splendid, just for you three and your evil Gryffindor conspiracy!"

Hermione looked torn between reprimanding the twins for their obvious delight in being ordered to do pranks and break rules, and jumping up and down in happiness that with the twin's 'help', the chances of the three of them being caught moving Norbert had significantly decreased.

Harry massaged her forehead in exasperation: this was just making her ever-present headache worse.

"Do I dare wonder what you have in mind?" Harry asked.

A pair of utterly evil grins was all the answer she got. Her head was near to throbbing now - Saturday couldn't get here quick enough.

When the day in question finally bothered to arrive, those of Hogwarts that knew about the situation were tensed to the point of bursting. Well, except for Fred and George, Harry noted during the ridiculously-early Quidditch practice Wood dragged the team to that morning. The twins were too busy plotting whatever it was that they had planned to be worried.

Ron had finally gotten his muggle fist-fight with Malfoy. The blonde Slytherin had wandered past the Gyffindor table at lunch, perhaps in yet another attempt at getting his possible private chat with Harry. Whatever his original intentions, Malfoy had chosen to cover his departure with a mutter of something that Ron decided was insulting and requiring of punishment. Before anyone could stop him, Ron jumped Malfoy.

The professors stopped things before they got too much farther out of hand, and Ron, Malfoy, and Neville (who hadn't been fighting at all: Ron and Malfoy had accidentally landed on him) were docked ten points each, assigned detentions, and basically declared embarrassments to the school by the older years of all the Houses (except for Hufflepuff, of course).

Later that afternoon, once Neville was consoled (by Hermione), apologized to (by Ron, with Harry prodding him), and sent on his way, Hermione was the one to say a very strange thing.

"It'll be just as well that you can't be available tonight, Ron," was what Hermione said.

"Huh?" Ron blinked.

Harry blinked as well. Then it suddenly occurred to her what Hermione was saying, and she nodded in agreement. It did make sense…this unspoken agreement, naturally enough, left Ron completely in the dark.

"What are you talking about?" Ron demanded.

"You can't go tonight, Ron," Hermione said, "You're already in enough trouble as it is. If we were caught, they would most likely expel you from school. Harry and I have been behaving ourselves, so we should only get detentions and lose p-points at the most."

Hermione looked conflicted as she spoke; the stutter only proved it. Ron was gaping at her now. It had been an acknowledged fact that Hermione wanted as little to do with the actual rule-breaking as possible; for her to offer to risk her reputation and perfect rule-abiding streak…

"You're…going to…you're going to go? But you HATE breaking rules," Ron pointed out, "You can't be serious."

"Well, I think it would be rather difficult for Harry to go by herself," Hermione replied, "Besides, this way is safer. We only have to worry about Lavender and Parvarti noticing we're gone, and they sleep very soundly."

Reluctantly, Ron agreed, and when he went off to talk to the twins, Harry turned to Hermione and stated bluntly, "Sit down before you faint."

Hermione, who had been looking quite pale, started guiltily before sitting down on the plush chair by the second fireplace. Gryffindor's common room had several such two-seater chairs, and there was more than enough room for Harry.

"Hermione, I know you don't like it, but you need to be realistic. Please?" Harry said in a low, urgent voice.

"I know, and I don't like it, but that's not what's bothering me, really," Hermione sighed.

"Then what is it?" Harry asked.

"I…I don't know what to do!" Hermione finally admitted, startling Harry.

"I have been going over plan after plan in my head ever since we received Charlie's letter," the bushy-haired witch said, "And even with Fred and George doing something as a distraction, the chances of getting caught are too high! I know how to keep anyone who sees us from running off to tell a professor or the Headmaster, but they'll still see us, and they'll still tell! If it's a ghost, then I can't even do anything, and I may be the only one who's noticed, but security for the castle has been stepped up ever since the troll got in on Halloween. I've looked, but I haven't had enough time to find a spell that would keep us from being seen…and we're likely to be in so much trouble…"

Harry was about to open her mouth and point out that Dumbledore wouldn't likely care anyway - he'd seen Norbert as an egg and as any wizarding idiot would know what came out of such eggs, the Headmaster had had more than enough time to get involved - but instead, Harry remembered the cloak from Christmas. It was fairly big, and Harry had sort-of forgotten on purpose to tell Ron and Hermione about it…

That night, once everyone was in their dormitories, and in Lavender and Parvarti's cases, fast asleep, Harry and Hermione crept down to the Common Room. After checking that they were the only ones present, Harry held out the cloak. Hermione was stunned speechless - for a moment, anyways.

"That's an Invisibility Cloak! I've read about them - they're made from woven Demiguise hair, which makes them very valuable. They were first -"

"Hermione!" Harry hissed.

"What? …Oh…right," Hermione blushed, "I'm not a textbook. I remember."

This was a little joke between the two of them, from very early on in Harry's and Hermione's friendship. One day, Harry, just a little bit fed up with the way Hermione seemed to be able to recite every single fact ever written about any subject, had pointed out that Hermione could help the girls in their dormitory save a fortune in textbooks: Hermione would just need to read one set of the books, and then, when the other three girls needed information, Hermione could repeat it for them…

Hermione had understandably protested that she "_Wasn't a textbook!_", and since then, Harry had been reminding Hermione of that fact every time she went off on one of her unnecessarily extensive explanations for things…

Harry folded up the cloak and pushed it out of sight with record speed as the portrait door swung open. Fred and George strolled in, arms full of what looked like a miniature feast from the Great Hall. Upon seeing Hermione and Harry sitting on the biggest couch, the twins tut-tutted at them in a manner eerily reminiscent of McGonagall.

"Now I should hope you two don't get any foolish ideas about wandering the corridors after curfew," George said, "There's something very odd going on in the dungeons tonight, and the professors will not appreciate First Years offering their assistance."

"Too true, too true," Fred agreed, "Biscuit?"

Harry and Hermione declined the biscuit.

"What sort of odd thing is going on in the dungeons?" Hermione asked, her curiosity aroused.

"We'll just say its something pink and leave it at that, shall we?" George winked as he and Fred headed up the stairs to their dormitory.

"Where did they get all that food? _Hogwarts, A History_ never mentions where the kitchens actually are," Hermione said doubtfully as Harry pulled the invisibility cloak back out.

"At this point, I can believe that Fred and George can go anywhere they want," Harry said, unfolding the cloak and gesturing for Hermione to get underneath it, "Let's get going, Hermione."

Once they were suitably invisible, Harry and Hermione pushed the portrait door open and moved into the corridors. Whatever pink thing Fred and George had set off, it was enough that the two witches saw no sign of their professors or the castle ghosts. They made their way down to Hagrid's hut with no problems but a stubbed toe.

Hagrid had already gotten Norbert inside a sizable traveling crate, and was making his last, teary goodbyes to the infant dragon.

"I've told 'im teh be a good boy fer Charlie," Hagrid told the girls, still sniffling, "An' teh make loads of little friends in Romania. I've already given 'im 'is supper an' he's got 'is teddy in there in case he gets lonely…"

Snarling and ripping noises from inside the crate made Harry wonder whether Teddy was going to survive the trip: actually, she rather doubted it.

"Bye, Norbie!" Hagrid cried as Harry and Hermione levitated the crate and began pulling up towards the castle, "Mummy will never forget you!"

Back in the castle, the problems Hermione had been having in coming up with a plan became very evident: Hermione knew a charm to keep the noises from Norbert's crate from being heard, but she hadn't found a spell to keep it from being seen. Now they had two options.

Harry and Hermione could have continued going under Harry's cloak, but that would mean a large crate would be seen floating around the corridors - hardly an unnoticeable sight. If they covered the crate, the two of them would need to be extra-careful not to be seen. After another moment's thought, Harry pulled the cloak out and began pulling it over the crate.

Once the invisibility cloak was draped carefully over Norbert's crate, Harry and Hermione guided it through the winding corridors and up the thankfully still stairs, heading for the Astronomy Tower. Charlie's friends would be arriving soon…

When the stairs of the tower came into view, Harry could have jumped for joy. That elated feeling was instantly evaporated when a dark shape appeared on the steps. Hermione choked and Harry feared all their hard work had been for naught.

"It's a quarter to midnight! Where have you been!" hissed the voice of Draco Malfoy.

…


	29. Never say it can't get worse

Well here I am, updating this story four days after my last update. And why?

...I don't know...

Oh well.

Disclaimer: See last chapter

Claimer: See last chapter

* * *

… 

Harry blinked. What was Malfoy doing here? And furthermore, who was he expecting to see? If Harry and Hermione backed into some shadowy corner, would Malfoy think no one was actually here?

The vague plan that had taken shape in Harry's head was crushed instantly when Hermione, startled, snapped back, "What are we doing here? I think the question should be what are you doing here, Malfoy? It's eleven-forty-five at night!"

"Did I not just say that?" Malfoy replied, "You took your time getting here, didn't you?"

Harry found her voice at that.

"You were waiting for us?"

"Of course I was!" Malfoy said, sounding irritated, "When I was so inconsiderably assaulted by Weasley earlier today, this fell out of his pocket."

His face looking a little red, Malfoy added, "And if I hadn't picked it up, someone more willing to tell the professors would have."

The last part sounded as if Malfoy had thought it up on the spot, and perhaps he had; in his hand, the Slytherin boy was holding Charlie's letter to Ron. Harry took it and jammed it deep into her own pocket. Harry wasn't certain what to say in this sort of situation, but thankfully Hermione was rarely at a loss for words.

"That doesn't explain why you're here," the bushy-haired witch said, "Or what you want, and we don't have time for questions. Either help us get up the stairs or go back to your common room, Malfoy, but at the very least will you please get out of the way? You're standing right in the middle of the staircase!"

Malfoy seemed startled by this, but moved out of the way. Hermione began levitating Norbert's crate up the steps, and Harry moved to assist her with only a last lingering look at the confused Slytherin boy. The two of them managed to get Norbert's crate all the way to the top of the Astronomy Tower without any further delays, and Harry had the invisibility cloak off the crate and stuffed underneath her shirt before Malfoy made it the rest of the way up the stairs behind them.

They were just in the nick of time. After only a minute's wait, four broomsticks came swooping down from the depths night sky. Their riders, Charlie's friends, were very cheerful despite the late hour, eagerly showing off the harness they had rigged to carry Norbert in his crate between them. Once every strap was in place and buckled firmly, Charlie's friends shook hands all around (even Malfoy's, to his confusion and Harry and Hermione's bemusement) before mounting their brooms, kicking off in unison, and rising swiftly into the air, Norbert's crate rattling loudly. In another few moments, they were all out of sight, and Harry and Hermione were enjoying their first moment of relief in a week.

"I can't believe we managed it!" Hermione exclaimed as they began making their way down the stairs, "I could sing!"

"I wouldn't," Harry said dryly, before turning to Malfoy.

"Are you going to tell anyone about this now?" she inquired.

Hermione lost her joyful look at this reminder, whilst Malfoy looked thoughtful.

"There'd be no point in telling the professors," Malfoy said, "I wouldn't have any proof, so I'd only be making a fool of myself."

"Why did you come up here anyway?" Hermione asked, "You never did say why."

Malfoy deliberately looked away as he said, "Merely my curiosity acting up."

It certainly didn't sound very convincing to Harry…she recalled how open he had been about his infatuation with her before the term, and how there had been no sign of that infatuation for months now…

'I hope he wasn't thinking he could be some kind of valiant helper in this,' Harry thought, 'If Ron had come with us, they would have ripped each other's heads off. And that would have attracted a professor, I'd bet.'

They had just reached the bottom of the staircase, and were about to make their way down the corridors when Harry felt a sudden spike of alarm shoot down her spine.

"Oh no," Harry groaned.

Hermione and Malfoy looked at her, baffled. Before Harry could say anything else, a sharp voice rang out in the corridor from behind them.

"WHAT do you three think you're doing out of bed at this hour of the night!"

That piercing voice belonged to an upset Professor McGonagall, and when the three turned, she was striding down the corridor, eyes already flashing in indignation. Hermione made a squeak, and looked like she was about to faint then-and-there.

"It's half-past midnight! There is no excuse for any student to be in this part of the castle - Ms. Granger? Ms. Potter! And Mr. Malfoy?"

McGonagall seemed surprised at first - they didn't make the most likely combination of students, Harry would admit - but then her outrage returned tenfold.

"You three, follow me at once!" McGonagall snapped, and began walking towards the nearest staircase leading down.

The repercussions were not pretty. McGonagall demanded an explanation of what the three of them were doing, but Harry and Hermione couldn't think of one that didn't implicate Hagrid for buying and attempting to raise an illegal dragon. Hermione's mind seemed to have nearly shut down completely from the shock and shame of being caught breaking rules by her Head of House. Malfoy, for his part, insisted that he had merely been going on a walk.

"This late at night at the Astronomy Tower?" sniffed McGonagall, "I will hear no such foolish lies. There is nothing that gives you the right to wander about the corridors at this time of night!"

Unfortunately, there were no answers that could satisfy the Transfiguration Professor - even telling about Norbert and Hagrid would be no good. Finally, McGonagall settled for taking fifty points from each of them. Later, they would be serving detentions.

Harry had almost gotten used to being a normal member of a student body during her time at Hogwarts. But the next day, when the school discovered that Gryffindor had lost one hundred points overnight, no one seemed able to believe it. Slytherin's fifty-point loss, it was reported, was resolved in the Potions classes of the day, and no one besides Harry and Hermione seemed to know it had been Malfoy who lost those points. That information soon became irrelevant when their fellow Gryffindors figured out who was responsible for their loss, and for the permanent damage that had been done to Gryffindor's winning the House Cup. All because famous Harley Potter and her know-it-all friend had decided to be complete idiots.

Ron stayed loyal, which was nice, but almost everyone else in the house started shunning Hermione and Harry as soon as they heard the news. Lavender and Parvarti were a constant source of dirty looks, and Harry began putting a binding spell on her trunk to prevent the contents from being 'disturbed' when she was out of the dormitory - just in case.

Hermione didn't seem able to cope very well. She started keeping her head down and not answering questions in their classes, and twice Harry had seen Hermione burst into tears after being glared at by the older years. Even the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws got in on the action. The only ones enjoying things were the Slytherins, and after a couple of days Harry decided that if she was 'congratulated' by Pansy Parkinson one more time the other girl was going to have to fish her eyebrows out of Moaning Myrtle's toilet.

Quidditch, which Harry had been starting to enjoy, had turned even more unpleasant as the rest of the team started addressing her as 'The Seeker' when it was necessary to talk about her and otherwise ignoring her completely. Well, Fred and George weren't going so far, Harry was relieved to notice, but they did seem disappointed.

It was a relief to have something to break the tension, even if that something was their detentions finally being decided. One morning at breakfast, an owl fluttered to Harry's place at the table bearing a note.

'_Your detention will take place at eleven o' clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall_,' the note said.

Ron plucked the note out of Harry's fingers and read it, blanching. He was holding an identical note in his other hand - Hermione's.

"Filch, ugh," Ron groaned, "I'd rather have detention with Snape again."

"Very helpful, Ron," Harry said tersely, watching Hermione pick at her food without any enthusiasm whatsoever.

'Well, at least this can't get any worse,' Harry thought morosely.

…


	30. Because it always does

This is an AU fic. That means one person's 'mistakes' are another person's 'So this is what its like in an alternate dimension' moments.

...Except for the Nimbus thing. I'll go back and fix that eventually...serves me right for not having the book on hand when I wrote that chapter.

Seriously guys, yes, this is a re-write showcasing Harry as a girl. Any fic where Harry is exactly the same as he is in the canon, down to the last detail, is either the work of an insanely dedicated HP fan or one of the original books. Re-writing is what authors do in fanfiction. Don't complain to me about it, 'k? Kills the writing mood...

Another note: I'm using a character who wasn't given a name or description in the books in this chapter (possibly in future ones as well). I checked the lexicon for this, and since there was nadda, I get to claim artistic license!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own the _original_ Harry Potter

Claimer: I own **this** version of Harry Potter!

* * *

… 

It was half-past ten when Harry and Hermione made their way to the entrance hall. Neither were looking forward to spending a detention with Filch - even Hermione's deeply ingrained respect for those who contributed to education did nothing against the dislike every student had of the caretaker. Even so, Hermione was the one to put forth the faint hope that it might lessen Filch's bite if they arrived to their detention a bit early.

Just as they reached the top of the staircase leading into the entrance hall, Harry stopped in her tracks. Hermione, who had been walking behind Harry, made a startled noise as she barely avoided colliding with the other girl.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, "What is it?"

Harry did not reply, but just gestured for Hermione to listen. The voices became clear soon enough.

"With all due respect, sir," Filch's voice growled out into the hall, "I cannot let this slide. This is a school, and these spoiled little brats need to understand discipline."

"Rest assured, there will be discipline," came a voice Harry knew very well.

This second voice belonged to none other than Professor Snape. Hermione gasped, recognizing Snape's voice just as the two men walked past the bottom of the staircase. It was shadowy in the hall at this time of night, and Harry held perfectly still, wondering what was going on.

"However, I feel it is best left up to the Head of the House to determine the proper discipline for the members of that House. As Head of Slytherin, I hold jurisdiction over the education of young Mr. Malfoy. Therefore, he shall be serving this detention with me."

Hermione had gone from looking confused to looking outraged. Harry waved at her to stay quiet - the conversation wasn't over yet - and the bushy-haired witch managed to swallow her indignation, though she still looked very put out at Snape's misuse of authority.

"And what of the others in this detention?" Filch asked.

"They are Gryffindors," Snape drawled, somehow making the word 'Gryffindors' sound vaguely scandalous, "Minerva is their Head of House, and she has ordered their punishment to be served with you. I certainly cannot overturn the application of what discipline she feels the members of her House to be lacking…"

Filch laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh. The conversation turned towards other subjects as the two moved away from the stairs. As soon as the pair were safely out of earshot, Hermione exclaimed "I don't BELIEVE this!"

"Hermione…"

Harry wasn't really certain what she should say. Hermione filled the gap easily.

"I cannot believe he would do this! Perhaps he does favor the Slytherins in his classes a bit more than necessary, but when a teacher assigns you detention, you have to serve the detention! Otherwise, you will never feel the consequences of your actions when you break the rules! It isn't right or fair for anyone to go around breaking rules as they please and then not be given their proper punishment!"

"Including us, is that right?" Harry asked.

Hermione flushed, nodded shortly, and regained her voice.

"Neville told me about the detention he served with Ron and Malfoy. Professor Snape had Malfoy do his Potions assignments while Neville and Ron had to scrub cauldrons by hand - Neville said that Malfoy finished in half an hour and was excused, but Ron and Neville didn't get back to the tower for another three hours!"

"…It certainly explains how Malfoy was at the Astronomy Tower before we got there," Harry said, starting to make her way down the stairs, "And how he was the only Slytherin First Year not to be dyed pink by whatever it was that Fred and George did."

Hermione only pursed her lips in disapproval of Fred and George's high-jinks, giving her a temporarily resemblance to McGonagall.

They were reminded of their situation when they reached the bottom of the staircase, only for Filch to loom over them out of the shadows. The lit lantern the caretaker was holding highlighted his face in an intimidating fashion. Judging from Filch's reputation, he was doing so deliberately.

"Ten minutes to eleven," Filch greeted them, an unpleasant expression fixed on his face, "I suppose you sneaking little chits think that coming ten minutes early entitles you to leave ten minutes early, does it? Oh no, you won't be getting off quite so easily…"

Hermione wilted under Filch's glare, and Harry swallowed a sigh. Hermione had been so hopeful that Harry hadn't wanted to burst her bubble - but some people took every and any attempt at subservience as an excuse to increase the punishment. There was no point in trying to be helpful; it only encouraged them…

"Follow me," Filch said, once he was certain the girls were properly intimidated by him, and lead the way out of the entrance hall and outside.

It was dark on the grounds, but it wasn't terribly strange or unpleasant for the two Gryffindors. It had been about this dark when Harry and Hermione had made their way out to Hagrid's hut to pick up Norbert. Filch was talking softly to himself as they walked, reminiscing about 'proper punishments'…not even Hermione wanted to start a conversation with Filch on that particular subject.

They hadn't gone much farther before Harry recognized where they were walking and realized exactly where they were going. Much to her surprise, Filch was actually leading them down the same path they had gone before, towards the bright spot of light that was Hagrid's home.

Once they got close, Hagrid's voice rang out, "Oi! Filch, is that you? Hurry up, I want teh get started."

"We're serving detention with Hagrid?" Hermione wondered aloud.

"Don't think you'll be enjoying yourselves with that oaf," Filch said, detecting the relief in Hermione's voice, "It's into the forest you two will be going, and I shan't doubt that you won't be coming back in all one piece…not when it's through with you…"

"'Bout time yeh lot got here," Hagrid interrupted as he strode out of the darkness.

The gamekeeper was holding a large crossbow, a quiver of arrows hanging over his shoulder. Tagging along at Hagrid's heel was Fang. Upon seeing the pair lead by Filch, Hagrid frowned.

"Where's the other one, then?"

"Professor Snape is taking care of Mr. Malfoy's detention," Filch said silkily, "These two are for you."

"An' they look fair ruffled," Hagrid continued, frowning even more, "You been lecturin' again, Filch? Not yer place teh do that."

"I'll be back at dawn," Filch said, turning to leave, "For what's left of them."

As the caretaker slinked away, back towards the castle, Hagrid turned towards Harry and Hermione. Hermione especially was watching the looming tree line with unconcealed apprehension.

"All right, Harry? Hermione?"

When neither witch responded, Hagrid shook his head, muttering something under his breath. Harry heard the word 'ingrate' and wondered if that meant Filch - the rest sounded no more flattering, so it was a strong possibility.

"C'mon, then," Hagrid said gruffly, "We'd best be gettin' started."

"…Are…are we…going to go into the forest? Really?" Hermione finally asked.

"That's right," Hagrid called over his shoulder as he lead Harry and Hermione around the side of his hut, "Ignore whatever Filch told yeh 'bout the forest. Yeh'll be staying by me an' 'Marty the whole time, it'll be perfectly safe."

Waiting on the other side of the hut was a stout, swarthy-looking man with light hair - in the dark, it was hard to make out the color exactly. He was vaguely familiar-looking, but Harry couldn't place him.

"Harry, Hermione, this is Professor Themartus Kettleburn," Hagrid said, "He teaches Care of Magical Creatures - that'un won't be available for yeh 'til yer Third Year. 'Marty, this is Hermione Granger an' Harley Potter."

"Oh my! This is certainly a surprise," Professor Kettleburn exclaimed.

He leaned forward for a better look. Harry realized that Kettleburn was trying to get a clearer view of her scar and tried not to groan. She was going to have to keep her scar covered if this kept happening every time she was introduced to a new wizard or witch. Hagrid didn't seem to notice anything, or if he did, didn't seem to care. Hermione, surprisingly enough, was looking more chipper now then since they'd lost points for Gryffindor - the bushy-haired witch seemed to take the idea of a class she was too young to attend as something of a challenge.

"What is Care of Magical Creatures about, Professor Kettleburn?" Hermione asked, leaning towards the stout professor with an eager gleam in her eye, "What sorts of creatures are covered in your class? Is it a practical class? Are there any comparison studies of magical creatures and non-magical creatures? How -"

"_Textbook_," Harry hissed.

Hermione paused in her questions to give Harry a sour look, unhappy at the interruption. Kettleburn, for his part, looked somewhat taken aback. After another moment, he beamed a wide smile at Hermione.

"Oh, such an eager pupil! Tell me, young lady, are you perhaps a second year? I would certainly enjoy seeing you - both of you - in my class at the start of next term."

"They're both first years," Hagrid said.

Kettleburn's face drooped.

"Pity…I don't think I'll last another two years. Some of the animals are a little…unused to human handling."

"Yeah, they take some time teh get used teh yeh," Hagrid said, "Leg grow back alright, 'Marty?"

"Still a bit stiff yet," Kettleburn replied calmly.

Harry and Hermione shared a look. That didn't sound very promising…

"That's enough time-wastin'," Hagrid said with a clap of his wide hands, "We need teh get going. Harry, Hermione, one o' you grab a lantern - that's right - and follow me. 'Marty'll take the rear."

As they made their way into the forest, Hagrid finally explained what their detention was going to be.

"Last few weeks, somethin' new's gotten into the forest. Been raising a right terror, an' a few days ago, I found a unicorn that'd been attacked."

"A unicorn?"

"Hogwarts has access to one of the largest creature sanctuaries in Britain," Kettleburn spoke up from the back, "Quite a few of our unicorns have donated hairs and other materials for potions, wand-making, and other uses."

"What happened to the unicorn you found, Hagrid?" Harry asked.

"Died 'fore I got teh her, the poor girl," Hagrid replied, "There was a right ruckus last night brewin' last night, so we'll be needing teh make a count of all three herds. Ain't much that can take down a full-grown unicorn, an' that list is all bad."

"The unicorns will be skittish around us now," Kettleburn added, "Luckily, unicorns are attracted to young maidens, so your presence will help immensely, Ms. Potter and Ms. Granger."

A few minutes later, the pair of witches were shown just how true that was. The first herd of unicorns - glowing with a sharp, pale light like starlight in the darkness of the Forbidden Forest at night - snorted nervously when Kettleburn approached them…but trotted over to sniff at Harry and Hermione right away. Once the unicorns accepted that the smaller professor and huge gamekeeper were in the same group with the two girls, the processing of checking went much easier.

Despite the obvious danger of being in the woods in the dead of night, the same woods in which some sort of unknown monster was hunting and killing at wanton, the unicorn check was actually sort of fun. It was certainly much more pleasant than any other punishment Harry had ever been given before.

In the second herd, which was much larger than the first, Harry was confronted by a tiny baby unicorn. Unlike it's parents, it was golden, and glowed much brighter. The baby unicorn, wondering if this was a source of milk, sucked on Harry's fingers before deciding there was no food to be had and returned to its mother.

"I'm surprised you have such good night vision, Harry," Hermione said when they left the second herd behind, "Even with the lantern, I thought I was surrounded by a herd of fading ghosts."

Harry blinked at her friend, before glancing back. No, the unicorns weren't that hard to see at all - the clustering of so many in one area actually lit up the woods quite adequately…

"When we get back to the common room, there's something I need to ask you about," Harry said.

Hermione looked surprised, but nodded.

The last unicorn herd was the farthest inside the forest, further in than either of the other two. Hagrid seemed to know the woods perfectly, strolling along as calmly if he were walking along a street.

When they finally reached the last herd, it was obvious that something was very wrong. Despite Harry and Hermione's presence, the unicorns remained huddled together, snorting and stomping and eyeing everything around them. Occasionally one would lean down and start to graze, only to whip it's head back up in alarm moments later. It was as if they were expecting to be attacked at any time.

Harry was gazing around the edge of the clearing where the unicorns were huddled when she saw something odd. Another unicorn was standing there. Its head was moving back and forth, searching for something. When it tried to take a step towards the other unicorns, Harry noticed that it couldn't seem to move one of it's legs very well.

Harry made her way over to the stranded unicorn slowly, trying not to frighten it. The unicorn snorted at her when she got close, but did not move, even when Harry cautiously rested a hand on it's side.

There was something wrong with this unicorn; it even looked dimmer than the others in the herd…Harry's hand slipped when the unicorn shivered, and hit something sticky. Harry looked at the source of the feeling and felt vaguely ill. The unicorn was cut up on this side - the sticky stuff she had felt was the unicorn's silvery blood. As Harry stared, the unicorn took another step towards its herd. Now that she was close up, Harry could see how the cuts trailed along the unicorn's side towards it's leg. The leg itself was a shredded mess - it made Harry's leg throb in sympathetic agony.

"Hagrid," Harry called over towards the others, trying not to scare the injured unicorn away, "Hagrid. Hagrid!"

"Harry?" Hagrid's voice replied from the mass of unicorns, "Where'd you get off to?"

"I'm over here," Harry said, "Hagrid, this unicorn is hurt. It's bleeding all over and there's something wrong with it's leg."

Hagrid came over - the unicorn rolled its eyes and pawed the ground, but didn't try to run away - and cursed when he saw what Harry was talking about.

"These ain't regular killin' injuries, just maimin'," Hagrid said to himself as he inspected the unicorn, "Whatever was tryin' teh bring this feller down didn't know much 'bout what it was doin'…if I take 'em back with us, I can mend 'is leg…"

Hagrid was interrupted when, in perfect unison, every single unicorn in the clearing turned their heads towards the edge, near where Harry, Hagrid, and the injured unicorn were standing. There was a long moment of silence, during which Harry thought she heard a strange noise coming from the trees…it was such a odd noise, almost like the sound of a cloak being dragged along the ground - a slithering sound that seemed far more menacing in the darkness.

The moment passed. Once again moving in unison, the herd of unicorns turned away from the sound's source and bolted.

…


	31. Welcome to the turning point

I'm back, oh yeah! Turkey-day weekend was a time of glorious, glorious productivity on stories I had almost given up on!

(It was also a time for glorious, glorious turkey. Mm-mmm, oh so delicious!)

Ever since around midterms, I have been so swamped with work that all my creativity seemed gone forever. But then I had a five-day weekend with illegal amounts of good turkey, and low and behold! I came up with this!

Granted, work is already starting to pile up that will probably keep my next update somewhere in the Xmas area...stupid college.

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Disclaimer: Me no owning original Harry Potter

Claimer: This version Harry Potter all mine mine mine!

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Harry was worried for Hermione - the unicorns had stampeded, and she thought the bushy-haired witch had been somewhere near the middle of the herd - but she had more immediate things to be concerned with. The injured unicorn threw back its head, shrieking in panic, as whatever it was that had spooked the herd entered the clearing.

It seemed like a man-shaped figure, all covered in a huge, billowing cloak - but a sudden burst of pain in her head was sharp enough that Harry's vision seemed to double over on itself, preventing her from getting a better look. As for the poor unicorn, this was the very final straw.

The injured unicorn reared, despite the horrible condition of its leg, before running after the rest of the herd as fast as it could go. It cantered away into the trees with an odd, hopping sort of gait with only three working legs. Unable to focus long enough to move aside, Harry was almost kicked and trampled in the process. Luckily, Hagrid pulled her out of the way in the nick of time.

Hermione and Kettleburn stumbled over moments later, the former looking rattled, the latter very grave and serious.

"W-What was that?" Hermione stammered.

"I know of no creature that might make that sound," Kettleburn frowned, peering into the woods where the dark shape had been, "At least, none that would hunt unicorn in this forest. What did you find over here, Hagrid?"

"That last one's been hurt bad," Hagrid told the professor, "Lost a lot 'o blood. I'll need teh find it before t'morrow - won't last any longer on 'is own. I'm need yeh teh take Harry and Hermione back up teh the castle fer me, alright 'Marty?"

"Of course," Kettleburn said, ushering Hermione and Harry away.

-

Before allowing herself to leave, Harry turned and looked for the cloaked thing she had seen, but there was nothing there. Confused and worried, Harry followed the other two back towards Hogwarts. She rubbed her scar as she walked. It was still hurting fiercely, but what on earth could have set it off - and inside the Forbidden Forest, no less?

It was late (or maybe early?) as Kettleburn went so far as to escort the two Gryffindors all the way to the portrait hole and watching them step into the Gryffindor common room, before turning around and heading down the hall at a brisk pace. Harry had the vague sense that Kettleburn was going to report what had happened to the Headmaster…it made sense.

The common room was normally completely deserted at this late hour. In fact, there was one person still there: Ron seemed to have been waiting for them to return from their detention, and was now snoring away on the big couch.

Not wanting to wake him up just yet, Harry and Hermione found seats of their by the embers of the fire and tried to put some sense into what they had just seen.

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"That could have been really bad," Hermione finally managed, "Do you…were you able to see what it was at all, Harry?"

Harry shook her head.

"I was hoping you might have an idea."

Neither of them had one, though, and Harry's gaze trailed over to where Ron was snoring and drooling away, oblivious to the world. They should really send him up to his dormitory soon, Harry thought, Ron would have a terrible crick in his neck if he spent the whole neck like that…

"Um…"

Harry looked over to where Hermione was sitting. The bushy-haired witch seemed to be groping for something to talk about. Hermione was still quite rattled by what had gone on, and was trying to find something to distract herself.

"Err…you said that when we got back, there was something you needed to ask me?" Hermione finally said.

Harry blinked, thinking. When had she - ah. After the second herd of unicorns, which had been so bright to Harry, but not so to Hermione.

"It…may sound odd," Harry began, "Err…Hermione, what do you see when you look at magic?"

Hermione blinked, tilting her head quizzically.

"I don't understand what you mean. I usually see the spell doing what it's meant to, I suppose."

"Well," Harry said hesitantly, "You can see that the magic is working, but…sometimes…I can see the magic itself."

"When its being cast?"

Hermione no longer looked rattled. She looked confused more than anything.

"Not just then," Harry said, trying to think of an example she could explain.

Maybe she should tell Hermione how she could 'hear' her broom? Harry remembered something else then, something connected to that memory.

"You remember my first Quidditch game, don't you?"

"Of course!" Hermione said, "Where Professor Snape jinxed the broom."

Harry frowned. Hermione saw this, and raised her hands, placating.

"I know you never believed he did it, but I saw Professor Snape staring right at you the entire time without blinking. He was chanting nonstop as well. That's how you cast a jinx. He only stopped when I set fire to his robe."

"…You set Professor Snape on fire?"

Harry certainly hadn't heard this part of the story before! Hermione looked half-pleased with herself, and half-dismayed that she had done such a thing to a professor, of all people. No wonder Snape had wanted to referee the next Gryffindor game - that would be just the thing to take him out of the stands, where overzealous Gryffindors would set his robes on fire!

"Well, I didn't see you set anyone on fire," Harry continued, "But I remember when I got jinxed. I could almost see a dark line holding onto my broom. It was perfectly straight, and went somewhere down in the crowd. I had to rip it off before it made my broom drop me entirely."

Hermione's eyes went wide.

"Really?"

"Absolutely," Harry nodded, "And there have been…other things."

"Such as?"

Hermione's hands were twitching in her lap. Harry wondered briefly if the other girl was wishing she had a chance to grab quill and parchment.

"Remember the second herd of unicorns?" Harry asked.

Hermione's bright and interested gaze dimmed slightly as she remembered the ending of their check on the unicorn herds. Then she seemed to push those thoughts away and replied, "Yes. I mentioned that you seemed to have very good night vision."

"To me, those unicorns were glowing very brightly," Harry admitted, "That was why I could see as well as that in the darkness."

"And unicorns have their own, natural magic," Hermione mused, "Harry, this is fascinating! Is there any other time you'd seen magic?"

"Uh…I don't know if this is considered hearing instead of seeing… I can hear my broom. It likes to fly," Harry said.

-

Even as she said the words, Harry could hear how stupid that sounded. Still, she continued.

"During that second game, I think I heard the Snitch. That was how I knew it was behind Professor Snape."

-

Hermione looked as if her next Christmas had just arrived. With the mystery of Nicholas Flamel long solved, and nothing but studying for classes and the weight of Gryffindor House's anger and disappointment bearing down on her, Hermione had been lacking any sort of serious mental challenge. Now a great big fat one had just fallen in her lap.

"I haven't seen anything written about any wizarding ability like that in our regular textbooks," Hermione began, "I should start checking the Library as soon as possible. I wonder what section I should start with? What do you think, Harry? There should be something about it in there, this trait sounds like it could be incredibly useful. I wonder if I should ask Professor Flitwik or Professor McGonagall about this -"

It was very late, and now that the terror had worn off, Harry couldn't suppress a yawn. Hermione paused when she saw it, then ducked her head with obvious embarrassment.

"In the morning," Hermione said, getting up and heading for the staircase to their dormitory, "I should start in the morning. I wonder how early Madam Pince will open the Library…"

-

Shaking her head in resignation, Harry got up as well. Before heading for the stairs, she went over to where Ron was still snoring happily away. Taking hold of his shoulder, Harry shook it, hissing "Ron…" in Ron's ear.

Ron rolled over, but didn't wake.

"Ron!" Harry tried again, a little louder.

"…Mmm…n'thanks…don' nee' 'nother…" Ron mumbled, still fast asleep.

What was he dreaming about, Harry wondered.

"…Got three Nimbuses 'lready…"

'_Oh, that explains it_,' Harry thought as Ron's started grinning in his sleep.

With that, Harry turned and went up to the dormitory, exhaustion creeping up on her with every step.

…


	32. Start with a walking pace

Ugh. I've been bad about updating this, haven't I?

Sorry about that...

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine

Claimer: This stuff what I've invented is mine!

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True to her word, Hermione began research as soon as she could get to the Library the next day. When Harry came around to collect her for breakfast, she was mildly amused to find Hermione walled inside a veritable fortress of books and tomes. Harry was seriously tempted to find some way to reign her friend in somehow, but Hermione hadn't looked this happy in quite a while and Harry just didn't have the heart for it.

Judging from the way Madam Pince was hovering about, clearly worried for her precious books, Hermione might find herself limited soon enough anyhow.

Ron had been less than pleased to find himself asleep on the couch; he'd intended to meet them when they came back, eager to hear how Malfoy had suffered in a real detention. Hearing that Malfoy had been excused from any punishment at all (and by Snape, Ron's _other_ least-favorite person) sent the red-head into a snit. It only got worse when Harry and Hermione confided in Ron about what had actually happened during the detention itself.

"I can't believe they made you go into the Forest! You could have been - been eaten by a werewolf, or something!"

Hermione didn't even bother looking up from her latest book - Madame Pince had somehow convinced Hermione to check out a few of the books instead of monopolizing half of the library's contents - as she replied, "Because there are so _many_ werewolves out during the new moon..."

Ron went slightly pink, but remained undeterred. "And what's worse is that that lousy git Malfoy got off! He should have been stuck mucking about in the Forest too! Honestly! How you two can be so calm about all this, I'll never understand..."

Ron started muttering under his breath. Harry sighed, and went back to work on her homework. Exams would start in a few weeks, and the professors were starting to pile on the work in response. And memorizing the names of Jupiter's moons was a useful distraction from that painful memory of the thing Harry had seen in the Forest...

At dinner that evening, Harry was sitting across from Hermione. Hermione had brought down a large load of books and was alternating between the books she had borrowed to discover the reasoning behind Harry 'seeing' magic, and her textbooks. Harry had to keep reminding her to take bites of her dinner.

Oddly enough, Ron was not with them. He had said something about 'wanting to check something' earlier and neither Harry nor Hermione had seen him since. Harry was just wondering if Ron was trying to avoid the study session Hermione had been trying to set up when the redhead plopped himself into the seat next to Harry and began helping himself to the food.

"Where have you been?" Harry blinked, "It's not like you to be late for dinner."

"'Orry - " Ron swallowed his mouthful, "I went to have a chat with Hagrid."

"About what?"

Ron hesitated, then quietly answered, "I told him that I was asking about that injured unicorn you found for you two. He said...he said that it was dead."

Hermione looked up from her books, startled. Harry suddenly found her clean plate to be fascinating. Ron pressed on.

"Something...got to it before Hagrid could catch up to it, he said..."

"That _thing_ got it," Harry muttered.

"What thing? You saw what...what killed the unicorn, Harry?" Hermione asked.

For a long moment, Harry didn't say a word. A strange, queasy feeling was rolling around inside of her. Abruptly Harry stood and walked out of the Great Hall, ignoring the confused calls of her friends behind her.

Ron and Hermione only managed to catch up to Harry when she reached the common room. It was deserted, of course, since everyone else was still in the Great Hall eating dinner.

"Harry, what is going on? This isn't like you at all!" Hermione exclaimed.

"I agree with Hermione," Ron added, "If something's wrong, you should tell us about it!"

The irony of Ron and Hermione agreeing with each other was a little too interesting for Harry to ignore. She turned around to look at her friends despite herself┘and meeting that pair of determined gazes did in her resolve.

"Alright, I'll tell you," Harry sighed, "But you _have_ to keep it a secret..."

Pulling into a corner of the common room, Harry told Ron and Hermione all about the strange thing that she'd seen in the Forest. She ended up having to explain the strange reaction of her scar at the Welcoming Feast as well, and, in the end, had ended up voicing the unnamed fear that had been plaguing her ever since the Forest.

"If all that's been happening is connected to my scar, and my scar comes from Vol- "

Ron interrupted Harry in mid-word with a strangled noise. It took Harry a minute to remember that no one in the Wizarding World wanted to hear that name ever again...she sighed and repeated, "If it comes from..._You-Know-Who_, then this has to mean that _You-Know-Who_ is nearby, probably up to something."

"But how can _You-Know-Who_ be here! He's dead! ...Isn't he?"

Hermione looked distinctly uneasy at Ron's words.

"Well, perhaps...his ghost is back for revenge?" she offered.

Ron shook his head.

"Dumbledore wouldn't let any part of _You-Know-Who_ hang around Hogwarts, ghost or otherwise - and besides, why would _You-Know-Who_ come here at all? Even if he's...Dumbledore was the one wizard that _You-Know-Who_ always feared. Not even his ghost would dare hang around as long as Dumbledore is Headmaster..."

"Was his body ever found after that night?" Harry asked suddenly.

"...I never read anything about it, so I suppose it wasn't..." Hermione said slowly.

"Well, then whatever's left of him must be slinking around Hogwarts for a reason. If I were a nearly-dead wizard and wanted my powers back, what would I do? I'd go find something that would give me back those powers," Harry reasoned.

"But what could be here at Hogwarts that _You-Know-Who_ would want badly enough to risk confronting Dumbledore over?" Ron asked.

There was a long pause - and then Hermione went white.

"...We already know what he's after," she whispered, "We even know whose dog is guarding it..."

Ron swore.

"_That's_ what _You-Know-Who_'s after? That's bad, really bad - he'd have no trouble getting back to power with the Stone."

"But it's being guarded, isn't it? So it should be fine right where it is, shouldn't it?" Hermione asked.

Harry sighed to herself.

"Well, should we tell someone? Professor McGonagall, or maybe the Headmaster?"

"Won't we get in trouble for that? No one's supposed to know about the Stone being here to begin with, including us!"

"I think," Harry said, cutting into the debate, "That we should keep an eye out for anything suspicious. If we find out that _You-Know-Who_ is making a move for the Stone...we tell Professor Dumbledore then."

"That sounds reasonable..."

The first few Gryffindors were returning from dinner now, and so the trio had to end their discussion there. But honestly, they were probably fretting over nothing. There was little chance that Voldemort would try anything - not as long as Dumbledore was around. And maybe they were completely wrong...maybe it really _was_ just Voldemort's ghost, determined to haunt Harry for her role in his demise.

...Now if only Harry could really make herself believe that...

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